THE  LIFE  OF 
DONALD  G.  MITCHELL 


THE  LIFE  OF 
DONALD  G.  MITCHELL 

IK  MARVEL 


BY 

WALDO   H.   DUNN 


What  is  fortune  of  any  kind,  whether  in  the  shape  of 
genius,  or  strength,  or  money,  or  opportunity,  worth,  ex 
cept  it  be  employed  in  the  development  of  individuality  ? 
—D.  G.  M.  IN  NOTE-BOOK. 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1922 


COPYKIGHT,    1922,   BY 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Printed  in  the  United  States  o!  America 


Published  April  1922 


MA 


TO 

MY   GOOD    FRIENDS 

THE  SONS  AND  THE  DAUGHTERS  OF  EDGEWOOD 
CHILDREN  WORTHY  OF  THEIR  PARENTAGE 


4843(55 


But  historians  cannot  dispose  of  Providence;  and  even  biogra 
phers  are  compelled  to  show  a  reasonable  regard  for  facts. 

—Fudge  Doings,  2 . 75. 


PREFACE 

I  finish  this  biography  with  a  sense  of  deep  satisfac 
tion.  Its  completion  marks  the  fulfilment  of  a  hope  long 
cherished.  I  was  nearing  the  end  of  my  second  year  in  col 
lege  when  I  conceived  the  notion  of  writing  it,  although  my 
interest  in  the  subject  long  antedates  that  period.  A  selec 
tion  from  Dream  Life  in  McGuffey's  Fifth  Eclectic  Reader 
introduced  me  to  Mr.  Mitchell's  writings  when  I  was  a 
schoolboy  not  yet  ten  years  of  age.  Even  then  I  was 
charmed  by  the  sweet  flow  of  the  delicate  English,  and  the 
strong  current  of  feeling  beneath;  and  as  I  read  the  passage 
over  and  over,  and  then  read  the  brief  sketch  of  the  author's 
life  at  the  beginning  of  the  selection;  of  how  he  was  born 
in  1822 — even  then  an  "old  man"  as  I  thought,  but  not 
yet  dead;  for  there  was  a  dash  ("-  -")  after  the  birth-date— 
I  wondered  whether  I  should  ever  see  the  man  who  had 
written  so  delightfully,  and  whether  I  should  ever  own  a 
copy  of  that  book,  Dream  Life,  or  any  of  the  others  men 
tioned  in  the  sketch.  One  after  another,  Mr.  Mitchell's 
writings  came  into  my  possession,  and  I  was  not  content 
until  I  had  read  and  reread  them  all,  from  Fresh  Gleanings, 
through  the  limpid  pages  of  English  Lands ,  Letters,  and  Kings, 
down  to  the  last  volume  of  American  Lands  and  Letters. 
Still  later  I  came  to  personal  meeting  with  the  author. 

I  owe  a  great  debt  of  gratitude  to  Mr.  Mitchell.  His 
writings  first  interested  me  in  English  style.  I  have  often 
said  that  he  taught  me  more  of  English  than  I  ever  learned 
from  my  rhetorics.  More  than  any  other  one  influence  his 

vii 


PREFACE 

familiar  talks  on  literature  aroused  my  enthusiasm,  at  an 
early  and  impressionable  age,  for  the  work  to  which  I  am 
devoting  my  life.  A  desire  to  live  in  the  vicinity  of  Edge- 
wood  led  to  my  graduation  from  Yale.  On  the  2ist  of 
January  1903,  Mr.  Mitchell  gave  me  a  photograph  of  him 
self,  upon  which  he  placed  a  kindly  autograph  inscription. 
I  said  then  that  it  should  hang  above  my  study-table  as 
an  inspiration  throughout  my  undergraduate  life.  It  still 
occupies  its  accustomed  place.  Month  after  month  as  I 
have  wrought  on  this  biography,  the  sweet  and  kindly  face 
has  looked  down  upon  me.  The  closest  study  of  the  man's 
life  has  only  increased  my  admiration  of  his  character  and 
my  love  of  the  ideals  for  which  he  contended. 

I  owe  another  debt  of  gratitude  to  his  family  for  intrust 
ing  to  me  the  preparation  of  this  biography.  Their  entire 
confidence  in  me;  the  freedom  with  which  they  have  placed 
every  document  at  my  disposal;  their  desire  that  I  tell  the 
story  fully  and  freely  in  my  own  way — all  these  things  have 
made  the  work  a  delight.  Beyond  all  else,  however,  I  prize 
the  friendship  which  has  grown  out  of  our  work  together. 
Very  much  of  my  task  was  performed  in  Mr.  Mitchell's 
well-loved  library  during  a  delightful  period  of  residence 
at  Edgewood.  I  shall  retain  as  among  the  pleasantest 
memories  of  life,  long  evenings  of  talk  in  the  library  with 
Mr.  Mitchell's  daughters,  and  rambles  over  the  Wood- 
bridge  hills  with  his  sons.  Nor  shall  I  forget  an  August 
journey  into  the  quietudes  of  Salem  with  the  sons  Donald 
G.  and  Walter  L.  Mitchell,  or  memorable  conversations 
and  readings  with  Mrs.  Susan  Mitchell  Hoppin,  at  her  ever- 
beautiful  "Farm  of  Edgewood."  To  thank  those  who  have 
been  always  helpful  would  be  to  name  the  entire  Mitchell 
family.  I  feel  constrained,  however,  to  make  special  public 

viii 


PREFACE 

acknowledgment  of  the  assistance  I  have  received  from 
Miss  Harriet  Williams  Mitchell.  The  care  with  which  she 
has  preserved  and  arranged  the  materials  relating  to  her 
fathers  life  has  greatly  lightened  my  task.  The  complete 
ness  of  this  narrative  is  due  in  no  small  measure  to  her  filial 
devotion  and  her  untiring  industry. 

I  desire  also  to  thank  Mr.  Mitchell's  friends,  and  my 
own,  for  aid  and  encouragement.  To  name  them  all  would 
be  to  extend  this  preface  beyond  its  due  limits.  I  cannot, 
however,  forbear  making  special  acknowledgment  to  sev 
eral.  I  owe  thanks  to  Prof.  Henry  A.  Beers,  of  Yale  Uni 
versity,  who  could  have  written  this  biography  so  much 
better  than  I,  for  reading  a  portion  of  it  in  manuscript,  and 
supplying  needed  facts.  As  usual,  my  good  friend  and  col 
league,  Mr.  Walter  E.  Peck,  of  the  department  of  English 
in  The  College  of  Wooster,  has  given  unsparingly  of  his  time 
to  read  my  manuscript,  and  to  him  I  am  indebted  for  many 
valuable  suggestions.  Another  friend  and  colleague,  Mr. 
Frederick  W.  Moore,  has  kindly  read  all  the  proofs.  To 
my  cousin,  Miss  Letha  M.  Jones,  I  am  deeply  indebted  for 
painstaking  work  in  the  New  York  Public  Library  upon  the 
gathering  and  verification  of  bibliographical  data.  I  am 
further  indebted  to  Herbert  F.  Gunnison,  Esq.,  and  to  Mr. 
Irving  Bacheller,  for  permission  to  quote  from  Mr.  Mitch 
ell's  "At  Yale  Sixty  Years  Ago";  to  the  publishers  of  The 
Youth's  Companion  for  permission  to  use  the  article  "Look 
ing  Back  at  Boyhood";  to  Mr.  Jacob  B.  Perkins,  of  Cleve 
land,  Ohio,  a  son  of  Mr.  Mitchell's  roommate  at  Yale,  and 
to  Mrs.  Maud  M.  Merrill,  of  Stamford,  Connecticut,  for  in 
teresting  letters  of  Mr.  Mitchell;  to  Sir  Robert  Stout,  chief 
justice  of  New  Zealand,  for  valuable  information;  to  Mr. 
Henry  Charles  Taylor,  for  an  expression  of  opinion;  to  Alfred 

ix 


PREFACE 

K.  Merritt,  Esq.,  registrar  of  Yale  College,  and  to  Mr.  An 
drew  Keogh,  M.A.,  Librarian  of  Yale  University,  for  their 
kindness  in  supplying  information;  to  Mr.  Charles  Scribner, 
for  the  use  of  letters  from  the  files  of  Messrs.  Charles  Scrib- 
ner's  Sons;  to  Mr.  Charles  J.  Dunn,  Jr.,  of  South  Portland, 
Maine,  for  the  loan  of  valuable  books;  and  to  Messrs.  John 
Ashhurst,  William  F.  Clarke,  Alvin  H.  Sanders,  John  W. 
Plaisted,  and  Walter  S.  Green,  for  bibliographical  data.  I 
have  my  daughters  Dorothy  and  Lorna  to  thank  for  assis 
tance  in  reading  proofs  and  making  the  index.  To  none  do 
I  owe  more  than  to  my  wife,  whose  unselfish  co-operation 
made  this  work  possible. 

In  quoting  from  Mr.  Mitchell's  books  I  have  through 
out  this  biography  referred  to  the  Edgewood  edition,  pub 
lished  by  Charles  Scribner 's  Sons,  New  York,  1907.  The 
Battle  Summer,  The  Lorgnette^  and  Fudge  Doings  are  not 
included  in  that  edition.  All  references  to  these  three  are 
to  the  original  editions  in  book  form — those  of  1850,  1850, 
and  1855,  respectively. 

I  cannot  close  without  brief  reference  to  the  publishers. 
In  these  days  of  swift  changes  in  the  business  world  it  seems 
to  me  significant  that  the  present  officers  of  the  company 
which  issues  this  biography — Mr.  Charles  Scribner,  presi 
dent;  Mr.  Arthur  Scribner,  treasurer;  and  Mr.  Charles 
Scribner,  Jr.,  secretary — are  respectively  sons  and  grand 
son  of  the  man  who  more  than  seventy  years  ago  began  pub 
lishing  Mr.  Mitchell's  works.  I  am  grateful  for  the  care 
which  they  have  bestowed  upon  the  production  of  this 
volume. 

WALDO  H.  DUNN. 

WOOSTER,  OHIO,  April  I2th,  1922. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGB 

I.     THE  MAN  1 


THE  FORMATIVE   YEARS 

II.     ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YOUTH 13 

III.  THE  YALE  DAYS 42 

IV.  ON  THE  FARM 74 

V.     EUROPE 86 

THE  UNSETTLED   YEARS 

VI.     LAW  AND  LITERATURE 159 

VII.     PARIS  IN  REVOLUTION,  1848-1849 183 

VIII.     SATIRIST  AND  DREAMER 208 

IX.     AN  EVENTFUL  TWELVEMONTH 239 

X.     HOME  FIRES  ON  EUROPEAN  HEARTHS        .      .      .  260 

THE   EDGEWOOD  YEARS 

XL     A  HOME  AT  LAST 273 

XII.    OUTDOOR  WORK 279 

XIII.     CIVIL  WAR  DAYS 286 

xi 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XIV.     LITERATURE  AND  ART      ........  298 

XV.     THE  GOSPEL  OF  BEAUTY 315 

XVI.     QUIET  HEROISM 323 

XVII.     HOME  LIFE 334 

XVIII.     FRIENDSHIPS 366 

XIX.     THE  LONG  TWILIGHT 376 

XX.     THE  END 389 

APPENDIX 393 

INDEX  411 


XII 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

DONALD  G.  MITCHELL Frontispiece 

From  a  portrait  painted  in  1904  by  Katherine  Abbot  Cox.  The  signa 
ture  is  from  a  letter  to  Philip  Hart,  dated  March  13  th,  1904. 

FACING  PAGE 

STEPHEN  Mix  MITCHELL 18 

First  Chief  Justice  of  Connecticut.  Grandfather  of  Donald  G.  Mitchell. 
From  a  portrait  painted  in  1827  by  S.  F.  B.  Morse. 

DONALD  G.  MITCHELL 56 

From  a  sketch  made  in  New  Haven,  Connecticut,  in  1839.  The  signa 
ture  is  from  the  letter  of  May  3d,  1840,  to  Gen.  Williams,  printed  on 
pp.  59-62. 

IK  MARVEL 240 

This  is  the  portrait  painted  about  1851  by  Charles  Loring  Elliot,  and 
referred  to  by  the  Mitchell  family  as  the  "Ik  Marvel  portrait."  The 
signature  is  from  a  letter  of  May  3 1st,  1855,  a  part  of  which  is  printed 
on  p.  274. 

MARY  FRANCES  PRINGLE 338 

After  a  daguerreotype  taken  in  1850. 


THE  LIFE  OF  DONALD  G.  MITCHELL 
IK  MARVEL 

I 

THE  MAN 

Simply  to  recall  him,  however,  is — I  think — to  honor  him;  for 
there  is  no  memory  of  him  however  shadowy  or  vagrant  which  is 
not  grateful  to  you,  to  me,  and  to  all  the  reading  world. — (Wash 
ington  Irving  Centennial  Address),  Bound  Together,  3. 

It  is  my  good  fortune  to  portray  the  life  of  a  man  who 
touched  the  world  at  many  points,  and  always  to  finer  issues. 
For  well-nigh  three-quarters  of  a  century  the  names  Donald 
G.  Mitchell  and  Ik  Marvel  have  been  household  words  not 
only  throughout  the  English-speaking  world  but  through 
out  many  countries  of  alien  tongue.  Familiar  as  people 
have  been  with  the  names,  affectionately  as  millions  have 
regarded  the  man,  and  closely  as  they  have  been  drawn  to 
his  spirit,  few  have  known  anything  of  the  intimate  details 
of  his  life.  For  Mr.  Mitchell's  was  a  most  retiring  and  sen 
sitive  nature.  He  discouraged  all  attempts  to  exploit  his 
personality  or  his  work.  He  shrank  from  the  thought  of 
becoming  the  subject  of  biography,  wishing,  as  he  once 
said,  that  a  writer  might  betake  himself  to  "a  larger  and 
better  subject."  I  am  quite  sure,  however,  that  those  who 
love  him,  those  who  have  lingered  and  who  still  linger  over 
the  pages  of  his  charming  books,  those  who  have  been 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

taught  by  him  to  feel  the  beauties  of  nature  with  his  own 
poignant  thrill,  will  welcome  this  narrative.  I  shall  at 
tempt  to  reveal  something  of  his  courageous  life;  something 
of  the  secret  of  his  power;  something  of  the  means  by  which 
he  influenced  his  fellow  men,  achieved  fame  for  himself,  and 
earned  the  lasting  gratitude  of  millions  of  readers. 

The  life  of  no  other  American  quite  parallels  that  of  Mr. 
Mitchell.  His  interests  were  many.  He  was  author,  edi 
tor,  practical  farmer,  landscape-gardener,  art  critic;  and  in 
all  these  activities  he  attained  distinction.  He  is  known 
chiefly  perhaps  as  a  man  of  letters;  yet  he  always  hesitated 
to  call  himself  a  professional  author,  and  stoutly  maintained 
that  his  contribution  to  the  practical  and  aesthetic  phases  of 
rural  life  was  his  finest  achievement.  It  was  characteristic 
of  him  to  consider  his  practical  work  at  Edgewood  as  of 
more  value  than  any  of  his  writings.  I  am  reminded,  how 
ever,  that  so  competent  an  authority  as  Mr.  Henry  Charles 
Taylor,  of  the  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture, 
pronounces  Wet  Days  at  Edgewood  to  be,  so  far  as  he  knows, 
the  best  book  on  the  history  of  agricultural  literature  that 
has  been  written.  I  hope  that  I  have  been  reasonably  suc 
cessful  in  setting  forth  Mr.  Mitchell's  contributions  to  the 
amenities  of  rural  and  of  home  life. 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  affirm  that  I  myself  am  primarily 
attracted  by  the  strong,  sweet  character  of  Mr.  Mitchell. 
He  was  greatest  as  a  man.  He  lived  a  life  of  singular  sim 
plicity  and  purity,  a  life  free  from  ostentation  and  affecta 
tion,  a  life  dedicated  to  the  highest  ideals.  He  sought  the 
realities  of  life,  and  never  strained  after  the  possession  of  its 
shams  and  vain  shows.  He  had  great  courage  and  an  invin 
cible  spirit.  Although  never  physically  strong,  he  wrought 
more  than  the  work  of  a  strong  man.  Never  obtrusive,  al- 

2 


THE    MAN 

ways  modest,  free  from  the  false  standards  which  have 
always  blighted  life,  he  was  a  type  of  the  best  that  is  possi 
ble  in  the  way  of  living.  Without  seeking  a  following,  he 
gained  one,  and  has  left  a  deep  and  abiding  impression  upon 
the  world.  He  lives  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  whose  lives 
he  touched  to  nobler  living;  in  the  beauty  which  his  words 
and  deeds  have  incited  others  to  create. 

Mr.  Mitchell  lived  a  long  life  in  a  period  of  great  intellec 
tual  ferment.  He  saw  almost  the  whole  of  the  development 
of  the  greatest  period  of  American  literature.  It  is  worth 
while,  I  think,  to  remember  his  chronology.  He  was  con 
temporary,  friend,  and  successor  of  Washington  Irving.  He 
was  a  member  of  the  committee  appointed  to  provide  a  per 
manent  memorial  to  James  Fenimore  Cooper,  and  helped  to 
arrange  a  public  meeting  in  the  old  Metropolitan  Hall,  New 
York,  over  which  Daniel  Webster  presided,  and  before  which 
William  Cullen  Bryant  delivered  a  eulogy  on  Cooper.  Be 
fore  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  had  won  fame  as  the  Autocrat 
of  the  Breakfast-Table,  Mr.  Mitchell  had  attained  even  in 
ternational  prominence.  When  he  published  his  first  book 
in  1847,  Longfellow's  Hiawatha  was  as  yet  unthought  of,  and 
Lowell's  Biglow  Papers  were  running  in  the  columns  of  the 
Boston  Courier.  When  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor  was  published 
in  1850,  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  had  just  completed  his  term 
of  office  in  the  Salem  Custom  House,  and  had  ready  for  pub 
lication  The  Scarlet  Letter.  During  the  decade  from  1837  to 
1847  Emerson  had  published  two  volumes  of  essays  and  one 
of  poems,  and  was  about  to  issue  Representative  Men.  Poe 
had  risen  to  prominence  and  was  nearing  the  end  of  his  un 
happy  life.  Mr.  Mitchell,  with  a  considerable  bibliography 
to  his  credit,  became  consul  at  Venice  when  his  successor- 
to-be,  William  Dean  Howells,  was  but  sixteen  years  old. 

3 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

Moreover,  Mr.  Mitchell  lived  to  record  in  literature  most  of 
the  men  who  had  achieved  eminence  in  American  letters, 
and  who  died  before  1900. 

As  I  have  said,  Mr.  Mitchell's  name  and  fame  have  gone 
far.  His  authorized  publishers  have  sold  well  over  a  million 
copies  of  his  books.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  sales 
of  the  more  than  fifty  unauthorized  editions  have  far  ex 
ceeded  that. 

The  mention  of  Mr.  Mitchell's  name — or,  rather,  the  men 
tion  of  his  pen-name,  Ik  Marvel — recalls  to  most  people  the 
two  little  volumes  which  first  brought  him  into  prominence 
— Reveries  of  a  Bachelor  and  Dream  Life.  These  books  are, 
indeed,  distinctively  his  own;  another  could  hardly  have 
written  them.  They  represent,  however,  only  a  small  por 
tion  of  his  literary  work,  and  that  not  the  portion  of  which 
he  thought  most.  In  fact,  those  who  think  of  Mr.  Mitchell 
as  a  writer  only,  or  chiefly  as  a  literary  man,  make  a  grave 
error.  He  thought  of  himself  first  and  foremost  as  a  farmer 
and  landscape-gardener,  and  valued  most  his  agricultural 
and  rural  writings. 

In  writing  Mr.  Mitchell's  life,  I  have  not  found  it  neces 
sary  to  supply  a  background  of  political  narrative,  to  record 
the  stirring  details  of  national  history  during  his  lifetime,  or 
to  explain  literary  movements.  For  in  a  certain  great  sense 
he  was  detached;  he  was  apart  from  all  such  things.  Whether 
moving  in  Washington  among  the  lawmakers  in  the  days  of 
the  Mexican  War,  or  in  Paris  during  the  revolution  of  1848, 
he  himself  is  for  us  always  the  centre  of  interest.  At  all 
times  and  in  all  places  he  was  individual;  his  biography, 
therefore,  is  the  story  of  himself.  Under  any  form  of  gov 
ernment,  or  in  almost  any  period  of  modern  history,  he  would 
have  been  himself.  He  never,  after  the  Venice  consulate, 


THE    MAN 

occupied  official  position;  he  was  never  in  this  sense  of  the 
term  a  public  man.  From  his  detached  position  he  saw 
with  sanity  and  clearness  many  things  which  the  public  is 
just  beginning  to  see.  And  it  is  because  he  was  charmingly- 
even  stubbornly — himself  that  people  loved  him.  The  world 
must  always  reverence  and  love  the  man  who,  living  a  life 
of  purity  devoted  to  the  pursuit  of  high  ideals,  never  allows 
himself  to  be  moved  from  his  principles.  Mr.  Mitchell  had 
his  own  notions  upon  all  subjects.  His  religion  was  his  own; 
his  methods  of  work — whether  writing  or  farming — were  his 
own;  his  ways  of  rearing  children  were  original  with  him. 
His  books  are  a  reflection  of  his  mind  and  spirit. 

Wherever  he  happened  to  be,  in  cities  at  home  or  abroad, 
or  tossing  on  the  ocean,  always  the  voices  of  the  country  were 
calling  him;  he  was  ever  dreaming  of  a  cozy  home  sur 
rounded  by  trees  and  flowers,  and  made  beautiful  by  the 
simplicities  of  life.  Edgewood  was  an  embodiment  of  his 
ideal  of  beauty  in  process  of  accomplishment.  Beautiful  as 
it  was  and  is,  it  only  approximates  his  ideal. 

His  political  course  was  deliberately  chosen.  He  had 
studied  problems  of  government  from  his  youth;  in  college 
he  gave  close  attention  to  political  theories.  He  had  ob 
served  the  practice  of  politics  in  Washington  at  close  range, 
and  knew  at  first  hand  what  it  required.  His  impressions 
are  well  given  in  his  Ik  Marvel  letters  from  the  capital.  He 
was  too  keen  not  to  see  through  the  shams  and  the  hypocrisy; 
too  honest  to  countenance  or  to  practise  them.  He  knew 
that  "the  shouting  and  the  tumult"  was  not  the  true  heart 
of  the  nation;  that  it  was  temporary;  that  even  while  it 
seemingly  occupied  the  seat  of  authority,  the  opinions  and 
the  lives  of  the  obscure  aristocracy  were  working  their  way 
to  the  fore.  He  was  content,  therefore,  that  the  clamorous 

5 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

and  noisy  mob  should  possess  the  present;  he  believed  the 
silent  and  the  better  influences  were  moulding  the  nation  to 
fairer  form.  "Let  us  remember/'  he  once  wrote  in  his  note 
book,  "that  all  influence  does  not  lie  in  a  vote,  nor  is  it 
measured  by  the  grossness  of  party  connection,  or  of  party 
zeal.  There  is  a  grander  influence  in  a  man's  life  than  in  his 
special  turn  of  a  ballot  to-day  or  to-morrow.  That  influence 
springs  from  the  tenor  of  his  life.  Does  he  respect  honesty 
and  honor  ?  Is  his  course  straightforward,  high-minded, 
charitable,  industrious  ?  Tell  me  this  of  him,  assure  me  of 
this,  and  I  tell  you  he  is  a  man  who  is  strengthening  the  bases 
and  the  hopes  of  our  American  Republic.  ...  I  tell  you 
that  the  color  of  a  vote  as  compared  with  the  color  of  a  man's 
daily  life,  is  like  the  color  of  a  blooming  spindle  of  corn  in 
comparison  with  the  golden  ripeness  of  the  corn  in  the  ear." 
Hence,  he  was  content  to  let  others  rule  ostensibly;  he  pre 
ferred  to  rule  by  example  and  silent  influence.  He  believed 
that  "  the  post  of  honor  is  the  private  station." 

Attempts  were  now  and  then  made  to  lure  Mr.  Mitchell 
into  public  life.  The  story  goes  that  in  1876  he  was  offered 
the  nomination  for  the  governorship  of  Connecticut.  What 
purported  to  be  his  letter  of  declination  went  the  rounds  of 
the  press  at  the  time.  I  have  been  unable  to  discover  the 
original  of  the  document  which  I  am  about  to  quote,  but  I 
am  convinced  that  Mr.  Mitchell  wrote  it.  "You  tell  me 
this  movement  is  strong  and  popular,"  he  began.  "Suppose 
I  should  be  elected  and  compelled  to  take  up  my  abode  in 
brick-and-mortar-environed  Hartford,  while  all  the  coppices 
of  Edgewood  are  bright  with  summer  bloom.  I  would  rather 
be  farmer  than  governor;  I  would  rather  sit  in  my  library  of 
an  afternoon  and  watch  the  growing  corn  undulating  in  the 
western  wind,  than  sit  in  the  chair  of  state  signing  bills  for 

6 


THE    MAN 

public  acts;  and  the  bright  flag  floating  above  the  capitol 
would  not  be  so  pleasing  in  my  eyes  as  the  smoky  banner  of 
the  far-off  steamer  seen  athwart  the  dancing  waters  silvered 
in  the  June  sunshine. "  Some  time  in  April  1876,  Mr.  Philip 
H.  Austen,  of  Baltimore,  Maryland,  one  of  Mr.  Mitchell's 
college-mates,  clipped  the  foregoing  letter  from  a  daily  paper 
and  sent  it  to  Edgewood  with  the  following  verses: 

Writing  the  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor 
Proved  Ik  a  Marvel  with  his  quill; 
Waiving  the  revenues  of  a  governor 
Proves  Ik  a  greater  Marvel  still. 

One  source  of  Mr.  Mitchell's  power  lay  in  his  rare  combi 
nation  of  Puritan  and  Cavalier  qualities.  In  this  respect,  I 
have  always  associated  him  with  John  Milton.  At  bottom, 
Mr.  Mitchell  was  a  Puritan;  his  whole  character  was  built 
upon  the  foundation  of  Puritan  morality.  Although  he  grew 
away  from  the  stern  Puritan  conception  of  God,  he  retained 
to  the  end  a  profound  reverence  for  the  Deity,  and  kept 
silence  before  Him.  At  the  same  time  he  was  a  worshipper 
of  beauty.  Ugliness,  angularity,  slovenliness,  hurt  him;  and 
in  his  fight  against  them  he  never  allowed  his  "sword  to 
sleep  within  his  hand."  It  was  his  love  of  beauty,  his  sense 
of  taste,  his  feeling  for  the  fitness  of  things  that  made  it  im 
possible  for  him  to  reconcile  himself  to  the  architectural 
regime  of  Yale  as  he  knew  it. 

His  appreciation  of  English  landscape  and  English 
methods  of  beautifying  home-grounds  was  his  by  right  of 
inheritance.  He  was  an  interpreter  to  America  of  the  best 
in  British  life.  He  belongs  to  the  number  of  those  choice 
spirits- -Washington  Irving,  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  George 
W.  Curtis,  and  William  Winter — who  have  loved  America 

7 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

without  scorning  Britain,  who  have  kept  the  fires  burning 
on  the  altars  of  friendship  and  affection.  With  them  he 
knew  Great  Britain;  knew  her  beauties,  her  foibles,  her 
strengths,  and  her  weaknesses;  knew  her,  loved  her,  and 
wrote  of  her  sympathetically.  His  words  have  done  much 
to  awaken  a  love  of  the  mother  country  in  many  an  Ameri 
can  heart. 

In  this  biography  I  have,  so  far  as  possible,  tried  to  bring 
the  reader  into  immediate  contact  with  the  subject.  I  have 
felt  that  where  Mr.  Mitchell  has  spoken,  it  would  be  unwise 
for  any  one  else  to  speak;  and  lam  convinced  that  his  friends 
and  readers  would  not  wish  to  hear  other  words  than  his 
own.  I  am  the  more  convinced  of  this  because  of  the  power 
of  his  written  word  to  attract  people.  "Somehow,  you  have 
never  seemed  to  me  a  stranger,"  is  an  oft-recurring  state 
ment  in  letters  written  to  Mr.  Mitchell.  An  interesting 
story  emphasizes  this  quality.  Mr.  Julius  Chambers  has 
told  how  many  years  ago  he  spent  a  month  in  Granada, 
near  the  Alhambra  Hill.  One  evening  he  found  atop  the 
watch-tower  of  the  castle  a  young  Spaniard  deeply  absorbed 
in  the  reading  of  a  book  which  proved  to  be  an  edition  of 
Reveries  of  a  Bachelor  done  into  Spanish  by  "A  Student  of 
Salamanca."  In  the  course  of  their  conversation  the  young 
man  told  Mr.  Chambers  that  he  would  gladly  give  a  year  of 
his  life  to  know  the  author  of  the  little  book. 

Few  of  Mr.  Mitchell's  readers  knew  and  appreciated  him 
better  than  did  his  friend  William  Winter,  one  of  whose 
paragraphs  I  cannot  resist  quoting.  "Everybody  who  has 
gained  experience  has  observed  that  most  persons — authors 
included — are  disturbers  of  peace.  The  human  being  who 
tranquilizes  his  fellow-creatures  is  rare.  Mitchell,  from  the 
first,  allured  his  readers  with  gentleness,  and  made  them 

8 


THE    MAN 

calm.  Washington  Irving  spoke  of  having  been  drawn 
toward  Mitchell  by  the  qualities  of  head  and  heart  in  his 
writings,  but  he  did  not  name  them.  Perhaps  he  would  have 
mentioned,  first  of  all,  that  quality  of  grace  which  diffuses 
peace — that  blending  of  dignity  and  sweetness  which  is  at 
once  the  sign  and  the  allurement  of  natural  distinction. 
Mitchell  is  a  writer  who  never  stands  in  front  of  his  subject, 
and  who  never  asks  attention  to  himself.  Washington 
Irving  had  the  same  characteristic,  and  it  was  natural  that 
they  should  be  drawn  together." 

Mr.  Winter  has  spoken  truly.  "It  is  of  little  moment," 
said  Emerson,  "  that  one  or  two  or  twenty  errors  of  our  social 
system  be  corrected,  but  of  much  that  the  man  be  in  his 
senses."  It  was  Mr.  Mitchell's  high  calling  to  tranquillize  his 
fellow  creatures;  to  teach  them  sanity  and  serenity;  to  help 
them  attain  unto  living  peace. 

His  words  live  in  the  hearts  of  men.  His  touch  of  quiet 
ness  and  order  and  beauty  lies  upon  all  the  city  of  New 
Haven,  and  the  country  thereabout.  The  whole  of  New  Eng 
land  has  been  quickened  to  a  sure  issue  of  beauty  by  his  sub 
tle,  unescapable  influence.  It  is  not  possible  to  estimate  the 
far  reach  of  his  Edgewood  books;  one  comes  upon  them  in 
the  most  obscure  places.  It  is  not,  however,  too  much  to 
say  that  through  them  his  rare  taste  is  permeating  all  the 
United  States,  and  is  year  by  year  guiding  it  to  a  surer  sense 
and  love  of  the  beautiful.  To  write  the  biography  of  such  a 
man  is  to  grow  toward  nobler  endeavor;  to  read  it  is  to  learn 
the  sweetness  and  the  simplicity  that  make  life  truly  great. 


THE  FORMATIVE  YEARS 


II 

ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YOUTH 

The  pride  which  induces  a  man  to  cherish  the  memory  of  an 
honored  and  respected  ancestor  is  not  an  ignoble  pride — nor  is  it  an 
unusual  one;  and  he  must  be  a  sot  indeed  who  is  insensible  to  the 
regard  which  by  common  acclaim  should  attach  to  the  name  of 
his  sire. — The  Lorgnette,  1.255. 

And  thus  it  is  that  home,  boy-home,  passes  away  forever — like 
the  swaying  of  a  pendulum — like  the  fading  of  a  shadow  on  the 
floor. — Dream  Life,  107. 

Donald  Grant  Mitchell  came  into  life  dowered  with  a 
rich  heritage  of  blood,  culture,  and  family  tradition.  His 
ancestry  through  six  generations  was  of  British  origin.  In 
the  paternal  line  it  begins  authentically  with  Sir  James 
Ware,  member  of  the  Irish  Parliament  in  1613,  and  auditor- 
general  of  Ireland,  whose  son  James  is  remembered  for  his 
De  Scriptoribus  Hibernice  (1639),  a  biographical  dictionary 
of  Irish  authors.  In  the  maternal  line  occur  many  famous 
names — Gardiners,  Woodbridges,  Parkers,  Saltonstalls,  and 
Brewsters;  and  the  early  history  of  New  England  bears  wit 
ness  to  the  impress  left  by  these  families  upon  the  material 
and  spiritual  development  of  the  country.  The  pedigree  of 
his  maternal  grandfather,  Nathaniel  Shaw  Woodbridge 
(1771-1797),  goes  back  to  the  Rev.  John  Woodbridge  (d. 
1637),  rector  of  High  worth,  Wiltshire,  England,  who  mar 
ried  Sara,  daughter  of  the  Rev.  Robert  Parker,  "one  of  the 

'3 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

greatest  scholars  in  the  English  nation. "  The  line  of  his 
maternal  grandmother,  Elizabeth  Mumford  (1771-1795),  has 
been  traced  to  Sir  Richard  Saltonstall  (b.  1586),  who  in  1644 
was  English  ambassador  to  Holland,  where  Rembrandt 
painted  his  portrait;  and  includes  William  Brewster  (b.  1560), 
of  the  May flower •,  "ruling  elder  and  spiritual  guide  of  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers."  Soldiers,  sea-captains,  statesmen,  au 
thors,  and  divines  appear  and  reappear  in  the  long  history  of 
both  ancestral  lines.  They  were  mostly  English  and  Scotch, 
with  now  and  then  an  admixture  of  Irish  and  Welsh.  They 
have  been,  on  the  whole,  capable,  industrious,  fearless,  up 
right,  and,  above  all,  honest.  For  well-nigh  three  hundred 
years  they  have  upheld  the  best  traditions  of  the  British 
race,  and  have  blended  sturdy  strength  and  unyielding  spirit 
with  bright  fancy  and  quick  wit. 

Mr.  Mitchell  was  always  reasonably  proud  of  his  an 
cestry.  For  him,  the  achievements  of  his  forefathers  were 
incentives  to  high  living  and  individual  effort.  His  keen 
humor  and  clear  common  sense  lifted  him  far  above  any 
dependence  upon  mere  pride  of  birth;  he  was  never  stultified 
by  ancestral  greatness;  he  never  allowed  the  weight  of  pedi 
gree  to  become  oppressive.  Some  of  his  sharpest  satirical 
thrusts  were  directed  toward  those  whose  only  claim  to 
attention  rested  upon  the  deeds  of  illustrious  forebears; 
and  he  never  ceased  to  enjoy  Sir  Thomas  Overbury's  refer 
ence  to  the  "potato-fields"  of  ancestry.  "Individuality," 
he  wrote,  "seems  to  me  the  best  stamp  and  seal  that  a  man 
can  carry:  if  he  cannot  carry  that,  it  will  take  a  great  deal  to 
carry  him.  If  a  man's  own  heart  and  energy  are  not  equal 
to  the  making  of  his  fortune,  he  will  find,  I  think,  a  very 
poor  resort  in  what  Sir  Tommy  Overbury  calls  'the  potato 
fields  of  his  ancestors;'  meaning,  by  that  cheerful  figure,  that 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YOUTH 

all  there  is  good  about  the  matter  is  below  ground." l 
Through  Sir  Richard  Saltonstall,  Mr.  Mitchell  could  trace 
connection  with  Edward  III  of  England;  but  he  was  very 
careful  not  to  let  the  fact  be  known.  In  1895  he  prepared  a 
chart  for  his  daughter  Mary  upon  which  this  Edward  con 
nection  was  shown.  Within  a  few  days  he  was  regretting  his 
action.  "I  don't  know/'  he  began  (January  6th,  1896),  "if 
you  have  received  a  letter  I  wrote  to  you  some  ten  days  ago; 
but  write  again  to  say  that  I  shall  be  very  much  mortified  and 
'put  out*  if  you  give  any  'forward'  place  to  the  'pedigree* 
which  I  sent.  Put  this  out  of  sight,  and  some  time  I  will 
make  a  nicer  one  going  back  only  to  colonial  times,  which 
can  be  boasted  of  without  vulgar  braggadocio  !  It  was  only 
to  amuse  you  for  the  Christmas  season  that  I  prepared  it. 
I  have  laughed,  ever  since  I  could  laugh  sardonically  at  any 
thing,  at  the  vulgar  pretention  of  those  who  make  a  boast, 
or  a  show  of  such  'tagging'  at  royalty,  or  its  shadows,  and 
should  be  dreadfully  mortified  at  your  calling  any  special 
attention  to  that  'gim-crack'  of  a  pedigree."  The  noble 
pride  which  he  cherished  for  those  whose  blood  flowed  in  his 
veins  became  for  him  a  source  of  strength  manifesting  itself 
quietly  and  without  ostentation  in  a  worthiness  of  life  and 
work  that  added  lustre  to  the  long  ancestral  story.  How 
well  he  knew  that  story  may  be  learned  from  an  examination 
of  the  Woodbridge  Record^  his  lasting  memorial  to  family  his 
tory  and  achievement. 

In  1885  he  wrote  a  brief  account  of  his  family  in  which  he 
gave  such  information  as  he  considered  of  immediate  im 
portance.  From  it  I  make  a  few  extracts: 

I  am  able  to  tell  .  .  .  very  little  of  James  Mitchell  .  .  .  save 
that  he  came  from  Scotland — neighborhood  of  Paisley — about  the 

1  Fudge  Doings,  1.32. 
15 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

year  1730,  and  settled  in  Wethersfield.     He  married,  shortly  after, 
a  daughter  of  the  well-known  family  of  Buck,  in  that  town.  .  .  . 

By  a  second  marriage  with  Rebecca  Mix,  daughter  of  Rev. 
Stephen  Mix,  of  Wethersfield,  the  emigrant  James  became  the 
father  of  Stephen  Mix  Mitchell,  my  grandfather.  What  the  avo 
cations  of  James  Mitchell  may  have  been,  or  what  means,  if  any, 
he  brought  with  him  from  the  old  country,  I  never  knew.  I  re 
member  only  that  an  ancient  house  of  the  colonial  type  stood  upon 
the  southwestern  angle  of  my  grandfather's  home  lots,  on  Wethers 
field  Street,  and  was  called  the  homestead  of  "Grandfather  James." 
I  have  further  heard  that  he  was  sometime  engaged  in  the  West 
India  trade;  the  fact  that  a  grandson  died  at  sea,  and  another  in 
the  West  Indies,  seems  to  favor  the  tradition  about  his  over-sea 
trade;  but  I  know  nothing  of  it  definitely. 

.  .  .  Stephen  Mix,  only  child  by  his  second  marriage,  married 
in  due  time  Hannah  Grant,  daughter  of  a  well  established  land 
holder  and  merchant  of  Newtown,  Conn.,  Donald  Grant,  who 
had  come  from  Scotland — neighborhood  of  Inverness — about  1735. 
The  passport  of  this  Donald  Grant,  with  its  commendation  of 
the  bearer  by  the  authorities  of  the  parish  of  Duthel,  Invernes- 
shire,  is  still  in  my  possession;  and  so  is  the  old-style,  flint-lock 
fowling-piece  which  he  brought  with  him  on  his  migration.  Shortly 
after  the  marriage  of  Stephen  Mix  (1769),  his  father,  James 
Mitchell,  then  for  a  second  time  a  widower,  married  for  his  third 
wife,  Mrs.  Arminal  (Toucey)  Grant,  the  mother  of  his  son  Stephen's 
bride.  A  speech  thereanent,  credited  to  the  veteran  bridegroom 
James,  used  to  be  current  in  the  family:  "My  boy  has  ta'en  the 
chick,  so  I'll  e'en  gather  in  the  old  hen." 

My  grandfather,  Stephen  Mix  Mitchell,  was  educated  at  Yale, 
class  of  1763,  was  tutor  there  in  1766,  and  received  the  degree  of 
LL.D.  in  1807.  He  was  in  the  same  year,  I  think,  appointed 
Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State  of  Connecticut. 
He  had  previously  been  Judge,  for  many  years,  of  the  county 
court;  he  was  also  a  delegate  to  the  Old  Congress,  where  he  was 

16 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YOUTH 

much  associated  with  his  colleague,  Hon.  William  Samuel  Johnson, 
of  Stratford,  an  association  which  led  to  much  intimacy  between 
the  families  of  the  two  delegates.  Subsequently  (1793)  ne  was 
appointed  United  States  Senator  from  Connecticut.  He  did  good 
service  for  his  state  in  establishing  her  title  to  the  "Western  Re 
serve"  lands  in  Ohio;  and  from  all  accounts  which  have  come  to 
my  knowledge,  did  other  service  to  his  generation  by  living  up 
rightly,  and  dealing  fairly  with  all  men.  My  grandfather  was  a 
tutor  at  Yale  long  before  the  day  of  his  ex  officio  fellowship;  and  I 
have  heard  the  story  told  in  our  family  circle,  fifty  years  ago,  that 
when  Timothy  Dwight,  the  first,  presented  himself  for  admission 
to  college,  Tutor  Mitchell  took  the  future  president  upon  his 
knee — so  small  and  young  was  he — in  prosecuting  the  examina 
tion. 

I  have  quite  a  vivid  recollection  of  the  personality  of  the  old 
gentleman  (he  died  in  1835) — a  figure  bent  with  the  weight  of  over 
ninety  years,  abounding  white  hair,  a  face  clean-shaven,  an  aquiline 
nose,  and  an  eye  that  seemed  to  see  everything.  The  portrait  by 
Professor  S.  F.  B.  Morse  [painted  in  1827]  ...  is  wonderfully 
like  the  venerable  man  whom  I  remember,  and  at  whose  house  in 
Wethersfield  I  used  to  make  my  semi-annual  visits  in  journeying 
to  and  from  the  old  school  at  Ellington.  I  remember  distinctly 
his  long  woollen  hose  and  his  knee-buckles,  and  his  oaken  staff — 
on  which  he  leaned  heavily  such  times  as  he  trudged  away  to  his 
barns  for  a  look  at  his  cattle,  or  the  fondling  of  some  pet  beast. 
His  long  coat — such  as  you  see  in  pictures  of  Franklin — had  huge 
lapels  and  pockets;  these  latter  often  bulging  out  with  ears  of  corn, 
on  the  visitations  I  speak  of,  for  the  pampering  of  some  favorite 
horse  or  pig. 

He  had  never  but  one  home,  that  upon  the  angle  of  two  of  the 
Wethersfield  streets  (it  is  the  first  angle  one  encounters  in  going 
northerly  from  the  brick  "meeting  house");  he  clung  to  that  home 
with  Scotch  tenacity,  and  brought  up  there  a  family  of  eleven 
children,  who  all  reached  mature  years.  Now,  there  is  not  a  ves- 

17 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

tige  left  of  the  house  in  which  he  lived;  nor  any  trace  of  the  gardens 
with  their  "  ox-heart "  cherry  trees,  which  flanked  it  north  and 
south.  I  don't  think  there's  a  tree  left  thereabout  which  was 
standing  in  his  time;  but,  on  a  late  visit,  I  was  fortunate  enough  to 
encounter  an  oldish  native  who  remembered  distinctly  my  grand 
father,  as  I  have  described  him,  and  his  gambrel-roofed  house, 
which  was  a  capital  type  of  a  New  England  homestead.  He  re 
called,  too,  much  to  my  delectation,  the  low  "chariot"  which  the 
rheumatic  old  gentleman  had  specially  constructed  (it  was  before 
the  day  of  Park  phaetons),  and  in  which,  with  his  venerable  horse 
"Whitey"  tackled  thereto,  he  trundled  through  the  village  streets 
and  along  the  "Har'ford  meadows."  He  died  at  the  goodly  age 
of  ninety-two,  and  lies  buried  near  the  summit  of  the  hillock  in 
the  Wethersfield  churchyard. 

The  eldest  son  of  Judge  Mitchell  was  Donald  Grant  (b.  1773), 
whose  commission  as  Captain  in  the  U.  S.  Army,  signed  by  George 
Washington,  is  now  hanging  upon  my  library  wall;  a  miniature  por 
trait  of  him  in  his  regimentals,  which  is  also  in  my  possession, 
shows  a  handsome  blue-eyed  young  man  of  twenty-three;  indeed, 
my  aunts  always  spoke  of  him  (with  sisterly  unction)  as  having 
been  conspicuously  handsome.  He  was  much  a  favorite,  too;  and 
the  story  ran,  in  the  Wethersfield  house,  that  on  a  time  a  certain 
distinguished  British  visitor  whose  acquaintance  the  Judge  had 
made  in  Philadelphia,  was  so  impressed  by  the  young  Donald  that 
he  proposed  taking  him  with  him  to  London,  engaging  in  that  case 
to  purchase  for  him  a  captaincy  in  the  British  army.  To  this, 
however,  the  patriot  Judge  would  not  accede,  preferring  for  his  boy 
the  humble  pay  and  perquisites  belonging  to  the  same  grade  in  his 
country's  service.  Donald,  however,  did  not  long  enjoy  his  cap 
taincy;  he  died  of  yellow  fever  in  Baltimore,  in  August  of  1799. 
He  was  a  graduate  of  Yale,  1792;  as  indeed  were  all  the  six  sons  of 
Chief  Justice  Mitchell. 

Alfred  (b.  1790)  my  father  was  the  youngest  son  of  Justice 
Mitchell,  and  the  only  clergyman  in  his  family.  He  graduated  at 

18 


STEPHEN   MIX   MITCHELL. 

First  Chief  Justice  of  Connecticut.     Grandfather  of  Donald  G.  Mitchell. 
From  a  portrait  by  S.  F.  B.  Morse,  painted  in  1827. 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YOUTH 

Yale,  1809;  studied  thereafter  at  Andover,  and  at  Washington, 
Conn.,  and  in  1814  was  ordained  a  minister  to  the  parish  of  Chelsea 
in  the  town  of  Norwich.  At  about  the  same  date  he  married 
Lucretia  Woodbridge  of  Elmgrove,  Lyme  (now  Salem),  whom  he 
had  first  encountered  on  his  ministrations  in  the  surrounding  towns. 
Miss  Woodbridge  was  one  of  two  orphan  daughters  of  Nathaniel 
Shaw  Woodbridge,  whose  father  was  Rev.  Ephraim  Woodbridge  of 
New  London,  and  thus  came  in  direct  line  of  descent  from  Rev. 
John  Woodbridge  of  Wethersfield,  who  married  a  daughter  of  Gov. 
Leete,  and  the  earlier  Rev.  John  Woodbridge  of  Andover,  whose 
wife  was  daughter  of  Gov.  Dudley.  On  the  maternal  side  Miss 
Woodbridge  was  descended  from  the  Christophers,  the  Gardiners 
of  Gardiner's  Island,  and  the  Saltonstalls  of  New  London. 

In  his  first  and  only  parish  of  Chelsea,  now  Second  Church  of 
Norwich,  Rev.  Alfred  Mitchell  served  some  seventeen  years,  when 
he  died  aged  forty-one.  Those  who  knew  him  say  that  he  greatly 
loved  and  exalted  his  office  of  preacher;  and  that  while  retiring  and 
shy  in  his  ordinary  intercourse  with  men,  boldness  came  to  him 
when  he  entered  his  pulpit;  and  that  he  taught  as  one  who  believed 
thoroughly  all  that  he  taught.  His  home,  unchanged  through 
out  his  life,  was  upon  "the  Plain,"  just  northward  of  the  present 
Slater  Memorial  Hall;  and  its  territory  embraced  a  small  tract  of 
wood,  of  garden,  and  of  orchards.  It  is  said  that  he  loved  these 
overmuch,  and  of  all  society  enjoyed  most  that  which  he  found  at 
his  own  fireside.  I  remember  very  little  of  the  personal  appear 
ance  of  my  father  ...  all  the  less,  since  during  the  last  year  of 
his  lifetime  I  was  mostly  away  from  home,  at  school.  Only  dimly 
do  I  recall  his  tall  figure  leaning  over  the  pulpit-cushion,  and  the 
wonderful  earnestness  of  his  manner. 

Alfred  Mitchell  was  ordained  to  the  ministry  of  the 
Second  Congregational  Church  of  Norwich,  Connecticut, 
October  r/th,  1814.  On  the  i6th  of  January  1815,  he  mar 
ried  Miss  Lucretia  Woodbridge,  and  established  a  home  in  the 

19 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

"parsonage  house"  at  Norwich.  This  large  square  dwelling, 
built  about  1785,  faced  the  old  Parade,  or  Great  Plain,  where 
now  is  Williams  Park.  It  was  a  beautiful  home,  set  in  the 
midst  of  ample  grounds,  flanked  by  orchards,  and  girt  about 
by  woodland  heights  in  the  rear. 

The  surroundings  of  the  parsonage  home  made  a  power 
ful  appeal  to  Alfred  Mitchell,  and  deepened  his  already 
strong  love  of  nature.  We  are  told  that  the  woodland  heights 
became  his  "walk,  study,  and  oratory."  A  part  of  his  staid 
and  exacting  congregation  was  inclined  to  think  him  a  bit 
eccentric,  when  he  built  in  a  remote  corner  of  those  wooded 
hills  a  little  summer-house  whither  he  withdrew  to  study  and 
meditate.  For  recreation  and  quiet  joy  he  turned  to  garden 
and  orchard;  and  his  fondness  for  flowers  and  fruits  was 
transmitted  to  his  children,  especially  to  Donald.  United 
with  this  deep  sense  of  the  beautiful,  and  love  of  its  manifesta 
tion  in  nature,  was  a  stern,  unyielding  Puritanism.  His  no 
tion  of  religion  and  of  its  responsibilities  exercised  a  some 
what  tyrannous  and  repressive  influence  upon  him;  the  Puri 
tan  within  him  came  to  predominate,  and  made  him  appear 
more  serious  and  reserved  than  he  was  by  nature.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  many  of  the  characteristics  which  Donald 
ascribes  to  Dr.  Johns  were  the  outcome  of  youthful  memories 
of  his  father. 

The  contemporaries  of  Alfred  Mitchell  were  impressed  by 
his  personal  appearance  and  his  "most  amiable  and  interest 
ing  manners."  His  portrait  reveals  an  attractive  face,  and 
the  large,  thoughtful  eyes  of  a  dreamer.  "His  countenance," 
wrote  Albert  T.  Chester,  "was  benignant,  though  exceed 
ingly  grave  and  solemn;  his  gait  and  attitudes  were  all  digni 
fied.  In  speech  he  was  deliberate;  every  thought  was  well 
examined  before  it  was  permitted  to  pass  his  lips.  This  gave 

20 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YOUTH 

him  an  appearance  of  reserve  and  coldness  which,  however, 
his  uniform  kindness  and  amiable  temper  ever  contradicted. 
His  sermons  .  .  .  delivered  .  .  .  with  increased  animation, 
fairly  startled  the  congregation."  In  his  Annals  of  the 
American  Pulpit,  Dr.  William  Buell  Sprague  records  that 
Mr.  Mitchell  was  "a  good  scholar,  and  was  particularly  dis 
tinguished  for  a  judicious,  fearless  independence,  united  with 
great  conscientiousness,  though  he  was  diffident  in  his  man 
ners  to  a  fault/'  He  was  unusually  sensitive  to  the  responsi 
bilities  of  his  calling,  and  labored  with  increasing  zeal,  grow 
ing  all  the  while  perhaps  more  reserved  in  manner  and  more 
exacting  in  his  own  religious  life.  There  is  a  probability  that 
his  death  at  the  early  age  of  forty-one  was  the  result  of  over- 
exertion  in  conducting  revival  services — an  overtaxing  of 
physical  and  spiritual  energies. 

Lucretia  Woodbridge  brought  sterling  qualities  of  head 
and  heart  to  the  Norwich  manse.  She  had  never  known  the 
love  of  either  parent.  Her  father,  during  the  seven  years  of 
his  married  life,  occupied  a  country  estate  near  Elmgrove, 
Salem,  which  he  had  inherited  from  his  mother's  people,  the 
Shaws.  Here  he  lived  as  "a  country  squire,  devoted  to 
horses,  dogs,  hunting,  and  out-of-door  sports,  and  probably 
had  little  to  do  with  the  practical  side  of  a  farmer's  life.  He 
was  of  an  affectionate  nature,  and  devotedly  attached  to  his 
friends.  .  .  .  He  was  convivial  in  his  tastes,  generous  to  a 
fault,  a  careless  liver;  and  finally,  the  delicacy  of  his  constitu 
tion,  which  he  had  inherited  from  his  father  and  mother, 
developed  into  consumption,  which  ended  his  life  at  the 
early  age  of  twenty-six."  *  Upon  the  death  of  her  father, 
two  years  after  that  of  her  mother,  Lucretia,  not  yet  two 
years  old,  was  taken  by  her  grandparents,  John  and  Lucretia 

1  Chronicles  of  a  Connecticut  Farm,  1769-1905.     Compiled  by  Mary  E.  Perkins. 

21 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

Christophers  Mumford,  who  lived  near  by  at  Elmgrove,  her 
paternal  grandparents  being  already  dead. 

A  portrait  of  Lucretia  Woodbridge  painted  by  Samuel 
Waldo  about  1815  passed  to  the  son  Donald,  and  for  more 
than  fifty  years  has  hung  above  the  mantelpiece  in  the  Edge- 
wood  library.  It  is  the  portrait  of  a  beautiful  young  woman. 
The  delicately  moulded  chin,  the  sensitive  mouth,  the  eye 
brows  distinctly  outlined,  the  soft,  luminous,  trustful  eyes, 
all  speak  of  unusual  refinement  of  character.  She  had  been 
reared  in  the  Episcopalian  faith.  Of  course,  when  she  be 
came  the  wife  of  Alfred  Mitchell,  she  entered  a  chillier, 
sterner  religious  atmosphere.  Religious  by  nature,  she  bent 
herself  very  conscientiously  to  conformity  with  the  new  con 
ditions,  and  doubtless  held  herself  to  many  an  undeserved 
reckoning.  All  the  sternness  and  discipline  of  a  Puritan 
minister's  home  could  not,  however,  sour  or  overlay  the 
sweet  naturalness  of  her  religion,  and  Donald  testifies  to  the 
influence  of  his  mother  as  worth  more  in  the  life  of  her  chil 
dren  than  all  the  sermons  and  catechisings. 

Husband  and  wife  were  congenial,  and  their  short  wedded 
life  was,  in  spite  of  burdens  of  ill  health  and  death,  more 
than  ordinarily  happy.  A  portion  of  a  letter  written  in  1816 
or  1817  (postmarked  May  ist)  to  her  husband  from  her  old 
home,  where  she  was  visiting,  is  illuminating,  and  helps  us  to 
realize  somewhat  of  the  conditions  out  of  which  it  came.  It 
is  eloquent  of  the  conflict  between  her  love  and  her  acquired 
Puritan  tenets.  It  is,  indeed,  just  such  a  letter  as  sweet 
little  Rachel  Johns  might  have  written  to  her  goodman,  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Benjamin  Johns: 

How  true  it  is  [she  writes]  that  in  the  midst  of  happiness  the 
sighing  heart  will  remind  us  of  imperfection.  I  find  even  at  Elm- 

22 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YOUTH 

grove,  surrounded  by  near  and  dear  friends,  I  have  many  thoughts 
hovering  around  our  snug  little  parlour  and  its  poor,  solitary  in 
mate,  and  wish  often  that  he  could  make  one  of  our  happy  circle. 
But  it  is  best  that  we  should  be  sometimes  separated.  I  find  by  it 
that  I  am  making  too  much  an  arm  of  flesh  my  confidence,  and  for 
getting  that  gracious  Being,  the  author  of  every  mercy,  on  whom 
alone  all  my  trust  should  be  stayed.  I  hope  you  do  not  fail  to  com 
mend  us  to  his  protecting  care,  and  implore  his  grace  to  strengthen 
and  assist  me  in  every  duty.  Thus  far  I  have  experienced  his 
loving  kindness  and  tender  mercy.  .  .  . 

Of  such  parents  and  amid  such  surroundings,  Donald 
Grant,  fourth  child  and  second  son,  was  born  on  the  I2th 
of  April  1822.  The  pages  of  his  books  reveal  how  open  and 
sensitive  was  his  youthful  mind  to  impressions  of  home 
surroundings.  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor,  Dream  Life,  About  Old 
Story  Tellers,  Dr.  Johns,  and  Bound  Together  have  woven 
into  their  very  texture  the  story  of  his  young  days;  fact,  and 
memory,  and  fiction  blend  into  a  web  that  only  the  author 
himself  could  ever  satisfactorily  unrav&l.  Few  men  have 
written  so  wholly  out  of  their  own  experience.  And  yet, 
according  to  his  own  testimony,  his  recollections  did  not  ex 
tend  to  an  unusually  early  age: 

I  wonder  [he  wrote  in  an  autobiographical  fragment  of  1894]  at 
those  autobiographies  which  carry  back  recollections  to  the  age  of 
three,  four,  and  five.  The  farthest-back  memory  which  I  can  fix 
by  years  is  when  my  father,  or  one  of  the  children,  alluded  to  my 
birthday  of  five  years  (1827).  I  know  I  was  seated  on  the  nurse's 
knee,  and  she  was  putting  on  my  shoes  when  I  looked  up  to  the 
interlocutor.  I  remember,  too,  a  severe  punishment  from  my 
father  at  the  same  age — perhaps  six  months  earlier — when  for 
some  sharp  assault  upon  the  same  good  old  nurse  (either  biting  or 
kicking),  my  father  snatched  me  from  her  lap — as  I  was,  half- 

23 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

dressed — took  me  out  of  doors,  and  dipped  me  into  the  tub  by  the 
well  where  the  horses  drank,  to  cool  me  off.  This  is  distinct  to  me 
now  at  <e.  72.  From  this,  and  other  recollections,  I  am  sure  my 
father  must  have  been  a  very  severe  disciplinarian;  too  severe  to 
kindle  a  child's  best  love.  I  know  my  feeling  toward  him  was  very 
different  from  that  toward  my  mother.  We — all  of  us,  I  think — 
went  to  her  first. 

Notwithstanding  Mr.  Mitchell's  statement  about  the 
period  of  his  first  recollections,  there  is  no  doubt  whatever 
of  the  sharpness  and  tenacity  of  his  memory.  Nor  is  there 
any  doubt  that  the  spell  of  the  past  fell  upon  him  very  early. 
The  Tennysonian  "passion  of  the  past"  was  his  seemingly 
by  right  of  birth.  One  has  only  to  look  at  the  drawing  of 
Norwich,  entitled  "A  Boyhood  Memory,"  which  he  made 
in  1895,  to  gain  some  little  conception  of  the  quality  of  his 
memory,  and  of  the  kind  of  thing  which  imprinted  itself  up 
on  his  boy  mind.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  the  course 
of  his  life  fostered  this  peculiar  quality  of  mind  and  memory. 
The  brevity  of  his  early  home  life,  the  shadows  that  came 
with  each  death,  the  final  break-up  of  his  home  in  boyhood, 
the  long  period  of  exile  in  Europe,  all  had  their  powerful 
influence  in  moulding  a  nature  already  sensitive  by  inheri 
tance  to  an  unusual  degree  of  sensitiveness  and  sadness. 
Throughout  his  life  he  loved  to  turn  to  "  the  days  that  are  no 
more,"  and  in  the  very  temple  of  Delight  he  found  with 
Keats  the  sovran  shrine  of  Melancholy,  and  dared  to  burst 
Joy's  grape  with  strenuous  tongue  against  his  palate  fine. 
Inherited  tendencies  and  the  circumstances  of  his  early  life 
steadily  moulded  him  for  the  kind  of  writing  in  which  he  was 
to  excel. 

The  strongest  of  his  early  impressions  were  religious,  and 
those  unpleasant  and  such  as  colored  all  the  rest  of  his  life. 

24 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YOUTH 

Always  a  devoutly  religious  man — with  a  strong  tincture  of 
Puritanism — he  yet  never  failed  to  deprecate  the  old  methods 
as  he  knew  and  remembered  them.  The  fifth  chapter  of 
Dream  Life  is  wrought  out  of  his  own  early  religious  experi 
ences.  In  the  light  of  his  youth  it  seems  inevitable  that  he 
should  have  written  such  a  book  as  Dr.  Johns.  From  almost 
illegible  pencil  notes  made  by  Mr.  Mitchell  when  he  was  be 
tween  seventy  and  eighty-five,  the  following  narrative  in  his 
own  words  is  arranged.  He  believed  in  jotting  down  such 
reminiscences,  and,  furthermore,  recognized  the  value  of 
them  when  put  into  print.  "Reminiscence,"  he  wrote,  "is 
not  egotism;  what  is  valued  in  it  is  the  side-light  thrown 
upon  the  history  of  the  times;  the  deliberate,  interspaced 
coloring  which  supplies  what  larger  and  more  serious  history- 
making  smiles  at  as  irrelevant  and  unimportant." 

But  [he  asks]  are  these  little  touches  unimportant?  The  shoes 
in  a  row  by  the  side  of  the  fire-place:  that,  in  mid-winter,  the  warm 
place;  the  old  cook  a  little  squally  and  impatient  with  us  cluster 
ing  there;  but  we  bore  the  scorchings,  the  cuffs,  the  little,  good- 
natured  buffets,  for  love  of  the  griddle-cakes  coming  to  a  delicious 
brown  upon  the  great,  round  griddle-iron  suspended  on  the  end  of 
a  great  crane;  and  swinging  it  out  as  occasion  demanded  for  a  little 
dab  of  her  butter-swab,  or  a  good  wipe  with  some  reserved  cloth; 
or  for  ladling  upon  it  with  ever  so  much  of  dexterity  a  little,  slowly- 
spreading  island  of  creamy,  delectable,  floury  mixture,  from  which 
the  brown,  dappled,  unctuous  buckwheat  cakes  with  white  edges 
and  chocolate  expanse  of  middle  parts  were  presently  evolved.  No 
range — no  stove — only  that  great  wood-fire  with  huge,  lumbering 
log,  a  great  lift  for  Ebenezer,  the  stout  negro  in  charge  of  wood- 
stores. 

Family  prayers  on  buckwheat  cake  days  were  always  too  long; 
or  when  a  crisp  morning  tempted  us  to  sliding  down  hill — coasting 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

was  a  word  not  known  in  that  day.  Then  school  was  opened  with 
another  chapter  reading  and  another  prayer;  this  was  an  awful 
banality;  family  feeling  softened  the  other,  my  hand  touching  the 
mother's  gown;  made  it  bearable,  proper,  nay  beautiful,  when  the 
sliding  was  not  over  good,  or  other  things  tempted,  such  as  scent 
of  buckwheat  cakes  on  the  round  griddle,  which  always  diffused 
through  the  house  a  festive  odor  of  its  own. 

Then  the  "asking  a  blessing" — always  sure,  but  under  home 
utterance  not  very  long,  and  serving  as  warning  to  eat,  and  not 
more  noticed  than  the  ticking  of  the  clock,  or  the  little  whirl  of 
some  alarm  gear  in  its  body  before  the  striking  of  every  hour  (I 
think  this  simile  came  to  me  early).  But  when  a  strange  clergy 
man  came  from  the  up-country,  the  wild  places  of  Griswold  or 
Voluntown,  who  thought  it  wise  to  interlard  the  "blessing  asking" 
with  a  little  didactic  discourse,  it  fretted  all  of  us  fearfully,  I  think, 
though  my  oldest  sister  always  wore  an  appreciative  air — so  far  as 
she  could  with  her  eyes  tight  shut. 

The  cook,  if  not  in  dough,  was  always  called  in  for  family 
prayers;  and  the  chambermaid,  always;  the  "hired  man"  usually 
on  Sundays.  The  family  prayers  were  often  varied  by  the  nasal 
adjunct  of  extempore  pleadings  of  country  ministers  come  for  the 
Sabbath.  Decanters  of  spirits,  kept  out  of  sight  in  the  side-board 
and  rarely  seen,  were  always  brought  forth  for  these  aged  brothers 
who  had  driven  a  long  way  in  the  cold.  The  custom  was  always 
extenuated,  but  the  decanters  were  never  brought  to  the  front  with 
eagerness,  or  pride,  or  appetite.  These  country  ministers  are 
worth  picturing — as  old  Waldo,  lame  and  bringing  his  own  un 
leavened  bread  with  him;  Nelson,  that  giant  whom  I  never  saw 
without  associating  with  Goliath,  as  a  sort  of  cousin  of  the  Philis 
tine.  These  all  we  hated  to  see;  we  knew  they  would  make  long 
and  weary  and  wandering  prayers;  it  cured  the  love  for  long  prayers 
very  permanently.  My  appetite  for  them  has  remained  in  a 
shrunken  state  ever  since.  Why  not?  Isn't  it  a  clean,  a  worthy, 
and  a  decorous  instinct  which  shivers  and  shrinks  from  wearisome 

26 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YOUTH 

platitudes  in  setting  forth  one's  intimate  relations  with  the  God  of 
all,  toward  whom  all  approaches  should  be  wrapped  in  awe  ?  No, 
no,  that  old  "huckstering"  of  the  business  of  prayer,  and  burden 
ing  it  with  genuflections,  and  ponderous  sentences,  and  nasal  itera 
tions,  was,  so  far  as  young  minds  were  concerned,  a  prodigious 
mistake.  It  put  dread  and  shivering  and  a  weary  spirit  where  one 
should  be  taught,  if  teaching  could,  to  put  into  worship  a  quiet, 
glad  burst  of  joyousness  and  of  hope.  One  little  tenderness  of 
admonition  from  a  mother's  lips,  one  little  burst  of  according  mel 
ody,  were  worth  then,  and  worth  always,  more  than  reams  of  elon 
gated  pulpit-promise  and  rebuke. 

Then  the  Bible  reading  urged  upon  us  every  day  with  promises 
of  pay  in  gifts  for  well-deserving  in  this  matter.  This  was  dread 
ful;  this  had  not  an  ounce  of  helping  toward  any  good  purposes. 
So  much  did  this  feeling  keep  by  me  in  the  development  of  the  next 
four  or  five  years  that,  when  within  the  lapse  of  time  I  came  some 
how  to  a  knowledge  of  the  Roman  Catholic  dispensation  in  this 
regard — of  excluding  the  Bible  from  free  family  and  childish  read 
ing,  I  could  not  help  (in  spite  of  some  martyrology  in  the  house, 
which  showed  Papish  people  burning  Protestant  people)  entertain 
ing  a  very  friendly  and  appreciative  regard  for  this  portion  of 
Roman  Catholic  regimen.  Nor,  indeed,  with  the  advance  of  years, 
have  I  found  reason,  on  moral  or  religious  grounds,  to  approve 
those  severely  Puritan  rulings  which  enforced  the  reading  of  the 
Scriptures  seriatim  upon  young  people.  They  come  thus  to  enter 
tain  much  such  opinion  of  it  as  they  entertain  of  any  other  en 
forced  reading  of  history  or  text-books.  A  distaste  and  indiffer 
ence  grow  in  ground  thus  fertilized,  and  religious  ideas  watered 
with  plentiful  tears  get  preposterous  shapes. 

And  then  the  drill  in  the  catechism,  with  "reasons  annexed," 
and  the  long,  long  hours  at  church,  seeming  to  listen,  but  not  listen 
ing,  to  the  sermons;  usually  catching  the  text  and  holding  it  in 
mind  as  something  likely  to  be  called  for.  The  general  idea  of 
conversion  was  of  something  that  might  strike  like  lightning;  and 

27 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

with  this  a  dreadful  sense  of  the  inefficacy  of  any  work  or  any  re 
solves,  or  any  prayer  even,  till  the  lightning  of  conversion  had 
struck.  I  think  I  grew  into  a  hate  and  dread  of  that  word,  and 
am  not  over  it  yet. 

Young  Donald's  years  of  uninterrupted  home  life  were 
few.  In  the  autumn  of  1830,  in  company  with  his  father,  he 
made  the  journey  in  the  family  chaise  of  some  thirty-five 
miles  northwestward  from  Norwich  to  Ellington,  and  was 
entered  as  a  boarding  pupil  in  the  school  of  which  his  father 
was  then  a  proprietor.  Ellington  was  a  typical  New  Eng 
land  boarding-school  of  that  day,  with  many  resemblances 
to  contemporary  English  institutions  of  the  same  kind.  Its 
founder  and  principal  was  Judge  John  Hall,  a  Yale  graduate 
of  1802,  who,  without  being  brutal,  ruled  with  inflexible 
Puritanism.  If  he  was  exacting  toward  the  boys  under  his 
control,  he  was  first  of  all  exacting  toward  himself,  and  at 
heart  was  sound.  He  believed  in  hard  work  and  rigid  disci 
pline,  and  was  especially  zealous  in  the  performance  of  what 
seemed  to  the  boys  a  dreary  and  monotonous  form  of  out 
ward  religion.  In  his  own  way  he  was  kind,  and  in  spite  of 
all  his  severity  and  dreariness,  was  remembered  by  most  of 
his  pupils  with  gratitude.  Under  Judge  Hall's  direction, 
with  intervals  of  vacation  and  enforced  rest  for  the  sake  of 
health,  Donald  remained  at  the  Ellington  school  until  the 
summer  of  1837.  Until  1835  ne  enjoyed  there  the  com 
panionship  of  his  brother  Stephen,  with  whom  he  roomed. 

It  must  have  been  a  rude  shock  for  the  sensitive  and  deli 
cate  lad  of  eight  to  be  separated  from  home  and  thrown  upon 
his  own  responsibility  among  an  assemblage  of  rough  school 
boys.  What  his  emotions  were  during  those  first  days  at 
Ellington  we  may  read  in  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor?-  We  may 

1  See  pp.  159-171;  also  pp.  230-236,  "School  Revisited." 
28 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YOUTH 

infer  something  as  to  the  strength  of  those  emotions  when  we 
remember  that  the  young  man  of  twenty-eight  who  wrote 
the  Reveries  was  reviewing  his  boyish  experiences  from  a  dis 
tance  of  twenty  years.  The  narrative  there  written  is  rooted 
deep  in  fact.  The  "tall  stately  building"  of  the  Reveries , 
"with  a  high  cupola  on  the  top,"  was  indeed  the  Ellington 
school.  "We  marched  in  procession  to  the  village  church  on 
Sundays"  was,  to  use  a  sentence  which  Mr.  Mitchell  himself 
inserted  in  one  of  his  copies  of  the  Reveries,  "literally  true  of 
the  Sundays  in  the  Ellington  church."  Even  the  "scholar 
by  the  name  of  Tom  Belton,  who  wore  linsey  gray,  made  a 
dam  across  a  little  brook  by  the  school,  and  whittled  out  a 
saw-mill  that  actually  sawed,"  he  identified  in  the  copy  of 
Reveries  mentioned  above  as  a  youngster  by  the  name  of 
Savage,  from  Hartford,  Connecticut.  "The  head  master, 
in  green  spectacles,"  who  bade  the  boys  good-by  as  they 
started  home  for  term  vacations,  was  none  other  than  Judge 
Hall. 

We  may  be  sure  that  the  youthful  dreamer  was  writing 
from  the  heart  when  he  exhorted  parents  to  "think  long  be 
fore  they  send  away  their  boy — before  they  break  the  home 
ties  that  make  a  web  of  infinite  fineness  and  soft  silken 
meshes  around  his  heart,  and  toss  him  aloof  into  the  boy- 
world,  where  he  must  struggle  up,  amid  bickerings  and  quar 
rels,  into  his  age  of  youth."  There  is  much  in  the  tone  of 
this  passage  to  remind  us  of  Mr.  Robert  Bridges'  "Pater 
Filio" — a  poem,  it  may  be  said  in  passing,  full  of  the  spirit 
of  Mr.  Mitchell.  Donald  seems,  however,  to  have  borne 
himself  well  at  whatever  cost  of  inner  struggle,  and  to  have 
suffered  no  unusual  indignities.  On  the  whole,  his  Ellington 
memories  appear  to  have  been  happy;  it  is  certain  they  were 
ineffaceable. 

29 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

In  1903  Mr.  Mitchell  was  invited  by  a  son  of  Judge  Hall 
to  speak  at  the  dedication  of  a  library  erected  at  Ellington 
in  honor  of  the  old  teacher.  Finding  it  impossible  to  accept 
the  invitation,  he  sent  an  appreciative  letter  of  reminiscence: 

I  am  very  sorry  that  I  cannot  join  in  the  pleasant  commemo 
rative  offices  which  you  have  plotted  for  this  week  in  Ellington,  in 
honor  of  my  old  and  revered  teacher,  Judge  Hall;  pray  count  me 
as  a  listener  (though  absent)  to  your  memorial  exercises ! 

It  is  now  seventy-three  years  ago — this  autumn — since  I  first 
stopped  at  "Pember's  Tavern,"  and  walked  up  next  morning,  very 
much  awed,  to  meet  "The  Principal,"  and  to  make  my  first  ac 
quaintance  with  the  surroundings  and  the  echoing  hall-ways  of 
Ellington  School !  Thenceforward  for  seven  years  (with  one  or 
two  longish  vacations)  I  "came  and  went" — coming  to  know  excel 
lently  well  the  old  meeting-house  (as  it  stood  on  the  central  green), 
and  "Pitkin's  Store,"  and  Martin's  brick  shoe-shop,  and  "Chap 
man's  Tavern"  (on  the  way  to  Snipsic),  and  McCrea's  apple 
orchard,  and — best  of  all — the  leafy  door-yard  and  benign  presence 
of  the  headmaster,  Judge  Hall ! 

'T  is  well  that  his  reverent  descendants  should  dedicate  a  li 
brary  to  his  memory,  and  it  is  well  that  the  people  of  that  Elling 
ton  region  should  have  bookish  remembrances  of  the  kind  master 
who  believed  in  thorough,  painstaking  teaching,  and  no  less  in  all 
honesties  of  speech  and  of  living. 

In  full  sympathy  with  your  pious  and  filial  undertaking,  I  am 

Very  respectfully  yours, 

DONALD  G.  MITCHELL. 
Edgewood,  9th  Nov.  1903. 

After  the  beginning  of  his  Ellington  residence,  Donald 
never  again  experienced  an  unbroken  season  of  home  life. 
Within  nine  years  after  his  entrance  there  his  parents  were 
dead  and  their  children  scattered.  The  "Peerless  Dreamer" 

30 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YOUTH 

who  was  to  write  so  finely  and  so  sympathetically  of  home,  of 
the  joys  and  sorrows  of  childhood  and  youth,  very  early  be 
came  acquainted  with  grief  and  knew  the  bitterness  of  death 
and  of  broken  hopes.  It  was  during  the  second  year  of  his 
Ellington  residence  that  his  father  died,  December  I9th,  1831. 
The  mother,  never  strong  and  now  alone  with  the  burden  of 
a  large  family,  accepted  the  invitation  of  her  uncle,  Judge 
Elias  Perkins,  to  occupy  his  home,  the  Shaw  mansion  in  New 
London,  now  the  home  of  the  Historical  Society.  She  passed 
one  winter  there,  and  there  her  posthumous  son,  Alfred 
Mitchell,  was  born  April  ist,  1832. 

During  the  seven  years  of  his  boarding-school  life,  Don 
ald's  vacations  were  spent,  as  circumstances  dictated,  with 
Norwich,  New  London,  or  Salem  relatives.  They  were  not 
periods  of  monotony.  He  never  ceased  to  delight  in  the 
memory  of  a  Thanksgiving  celebration  in  1832  at  the  home 
of  his  uncle,  Dr.  Nathaniel  Shaw  Perkins,  an  eminent  New 
London  physician.  This  celebration  he  made  the  foundation 
of  a  Hearth  and  Home  editorial  (November  2yth,  1869),  which 
later  came  to  print  in  Bound  Together.  Another  vacation 
event  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  the  spirit  of  the  ten-year-old  lad. 
It  seems  that  he  must  have  been  spending  the  October  vaca 
tion  of  1832  at  the  home  of  his  uncle,  Henry  Perkins,  in 
Salem.  There  were  probably  those  who  ventured  to  wager 
that  Donald  had  not  the  ability,  or  the  courage,  to  ride  bare 
back  one  of  the  Perkins  mares,  whereupon  the  youngster 
not  only  accepted  the  challenge  to  ride  but  rode  the  entire 
twelve  miles  to  New  London,  turning  in  to  the  stables  of 
Dr.  Perkins  "awfully  sore"  but  triumphant.  For  a  reason 
which  now  seems  undiscoverable,  but  doubtless  for  the  sake 
of  his  health,  he  passed  all  of  the  year  from  the  spring  of 
1834  to  that  of  1835  m  New  London,  carpentering  during 

31 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

most  of  the  winter  months.  It  was  at  this  time,  perhaps, 
that  he  acquired  much  of  that  skill  with  tools  which  he  turned 
to  such  good  use  throughout  his  life. 

However  great  may  have  been  his  tendency  to  dream, 
there  was  much  in  the  active  life  of  a  boys*  boarding-school 
to  counteract  it.  There  was  also  a  goodly  circle  of  close  rela 
tives  among  whom  he  moved  with  pleasure.  One  of  the 
warmest  of  his  early  friendships  was  that  with  his  cousin, 
Mary  Perkins,  daughter  of  the  Henry  Perkins  whose  mare 
carried  him  from  Salem  to  New  London.  As  Mary's  mother 
had  died  early  and  her  father  had  married  again,  she  was 
brought  up  in  Donald's  family  like  a  sister.  She  was  ten 
years  Donald's  senior.  A  tender  and  beautiful  intimacy 
sprang  up  between  the  two  which  was  broken  only  by  her 
death  in  1886. 

It  was  a  wholesome  if  somewhat  old-fashioned,  rigid,  and 
Puritanical  atmosphere  in  which  Donald's  early  years  were 
passed.  At  home,  and  among  the  home  friends,  he  came  into 
constant  touch  with  serious  living,  high  thinking,  strict  hon 
esties  of  life  and  word;  there  he  acquired  a  share  of  that  lib 
eral  cultivation  which,  as  Mark  Pattison  observes,  if  not 
imbibed  in  the  home,  neither  school  nor  college  ever  entirely 
confers.  From  the  venerable  Revolutionary  grandfather 
the  boy  doubtless  heard  stirring  tales  of  the  early  days  of 
the  Republic.  The  books  with  which  he  became  familiar 
were  good  books,  the  great  books  of  literature.  The  English 
of  the  King  James  version  became,  of  course,  a  part  of  the 
texture  of  his  mind.  He  has  himself  told  charmingly  of  his 
discovery  of  Pilgrim's  Progress ;  and  of  how,  as  an  Ellington 
schoolboy,  he  used  to  search  copies  of  the  old  New  England 
Weekly  Review  for  a  possible  story  or  poem  by  John  G. 
Whittier.1  As  the  young  people  of  the  Mitchell  and  the 

1  See  Old  Story  Tellers,  219-220;  and  American  Lands  and  Letters,  2.190-191. 

32 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YOUTH 

Perkins  families  were  growing  up,  they  kept  the  inevitable 
" albums"  of  the  period — the  small  note-books  into  which 
they  transcribed  for  one  another  poems,  bits  of  prose,  ran 
dom  thoughts,  chance  "sentiments;"  most  of  the  material 
being  solemn  and  dignified  and  not  at  all  in  keeping  with  the 
state  of  mind  of  the  average  present-day  child.  One  of  the 
earliest  specimens  of  Donald's  handwriting  (dated  April  i4th, 
1832)  is  found  in  such  an  album  of  Mary  Perkins,  in  which 
the  ten-year-old  had  painstakingly  transcribed  a  complete 
poem  of  the  old-fashioned,  sentimental  variety,  the  first 
stanza  of  which  may  go  to  show  that  it  was,  to  say  the  least, 
rather  out  of  the  ordinary  for  the  average  ten-year-old  boy; 
but  strictly  in  keeping  with  the  bent  of  his  own  mind,  which 
was  later  to  add  the  touch  of  sure  genius  to  pensive  thoughts 
and  reveries: 

Tell  me,  O  mother,  when  I  grow  old, 

Will  my  hair  which  my  sisters  say  is  like  gold, 

Grow  gray  as  the  old  man's,  weak  and  poor, 

Who  asked  for  alms  at  our  pillared  door  ? 

Will  I  look  as  sad,  will  I  speak  as  slow, 

As  he  when  he  told  us  his  tale  of  woe? 

Will  my  hands  then  shake,  and  my  eyes  be  dim? 

Tell  me,  O  mother,  will  I  grow  like  him? 

At  a  very  early  age  he  became  interested  in  drawing, 
and  there  remains  a  sketch  which  dates  from  his  eighth  year. 
It  is  an  earnest  of  a  talent  which  he  diligently  cultivated. 
Though  almost  entirely  self-taught,  he  persevered,  and  devel 
oped  a  great  deal  of  skill  in  drawing,  painting,  drafting,  and 
map-making,  deriving  not  only  profit  from  the  work  but 
much  pleasure  as  well. 

There  is  no  need  of  attempting  to  describe  the  manner 

33 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

in  which  the  youthful  mind  reacted  to  the  world.  Mr. 
Mitchell  himself  has  taken  care  to  do  that.  Readers  of  his 
books  may  be  sure  that  whenever  he  falls  into  reminiscent 
mood  and  writes  of  youth  and  the  long  thoughts  of  youth, 
they  are  reading  not  absolute  fact  on  every  page;  but  an  ac 
count  of  fact  colored  by  the  blue  hazes  of  sweet  and  tender 
memories.  As  a  record  of  his  developing  mind  and  spirit, 
the  Reveries  and  Dream  Life  constitute  the  very  best  kind  of 
autobiography  not  only  for  the  period  covered  by  this  chap 
ter  but  for  the  time  until  1850. 

Those  seven  Ellington  years  were  rich  years.  During 
that  period  were  laid  the  foundations  of  that  liberal  educa 
tion  which  he  turned  to  so  many  and  so  varied  uses.  During 
that  time,  also,  he  was  drinking  in  with  an  eagerness  that 
knew  no  bounds  all  the  beauties  of  the  landscape  of  central 
Connecticut.  Note  this  bit  of  description  of  an  Ellington 
school-holiday: 

There  were  others  who  gave  the  half — if  not  more — of  those 
sudden  holidays  to  a  tramp  upon  the  mountain  that  flanked  the 
little  village — toiling  through  pasture  lands  where  huckleberries 
grew  and  where  sheep  ran  away  startled  by  intruding  steps — paus 
ing  for  a  drink  from  springs  that  bubbled  from  the  ground,  and 
reaching  at  length  some  veteran  chestnut,  under  which  the  mosses 
mingled  with  the  turf  made  delightful  lounging  place,  where  we 
lay  for  hours,  looking  down  amongst  the  feeding  cattle,  and  beyond 
upon  the  village  green,  where  the  houses  stood  grouped  under  trees, 
and  upon  shining  streaks  of  road  which  ran  out  between  gray  zig 
zag  fences,  till  they  were  lost  in  distance  and  the  summer  haze.1 

It  was  on  such  holiday  excursions  that  the  soul  of  young 
Donald  was  all  unconsciously  feeding  itself  and  burgeoning 
to  fruition. 

1  Bound  Together,  289. 
34 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YOUTH 

He  was  by  inheritance  and  by  natural  inclination 
strongly  attached  to  Connecticut.  He  loved  her  rivers,  her 
hills,  her  valleys,  her  very  stones.  Connecticut  has  had 
many  sons  who  have  brought  honor  to  her.  She  has  had  no 
more  loyal  son  than  Donald  G.  Mitchell,  and  few  who  have 
extended  her  name  and  fame  farther.  Speaking  before  the 
Connecticut  State  Agricultural  Society  at  Bridgeport  in 
1857,  he  voiced  something  of  the  deep  love  he  felt: 

Gentlemen,  I  rejoice,  and  rejoice  with  you,  that  we  are  planted 
where  we  are,  among  the  hills  and  boulders  of  Connecticut.  I  re 
joice  in  that  very  roughness  which  shall  quicken  our  ingenuity,  and 
in  those  rocks  which  must  be  fused  and  blasted  and  dispersed  as 
they  have  been  this  many  a  year  by  our  own  dominant  energy.  I 
do  not  envy  in  this  comparison  the  South  her  golden  glories  and 
her  tropic  luxuriance.  I  do  not  envy  the  West  her  wide  reaches  of 
billowy  verdure  and  her  spray  of  flowers  tossing  in  the  wind.  I 
love,  and  I  trust  you  love,  the  State  we  live  in;  love  its  scattered 
school-houses;  love  its  church-spires  lighting  every  landscape;  love 
its  ever-during  hum  of  civilization;  love  its  near  dash  of  ocean, 
whose  other  and  balancing  waves  are  lapping  to-day  upon  the 
shores  of  England. 

The  hold  which  his  native  State  had  taken  upon  him 
from  his  earliest  youth  was  too  strong  ever  to  be  broken. 
The  spell  of  his  boyhood  days  was  enduring. 

At  last  the  Ellington  school-days  were  at  an  end,  and  with 
them  the  first  period  of  Donald's  boyhood.  It  is  well  to 
allow  him  to  tie  all  the  threads  of  these  first  fifteen  years  into 
a  delightful  narrative1  which,  as  it  closes  the  story,  gives  us  a 
glimpse  of  him  as  he  faces  toward  the  widening  experiences 
of  youth: 

1  His  "  Looking  Back  at  Boyhood,"  Youth's  Companion,  April  2ist,  1892.  The 
text  here  given  is  that  of  the  Companion  article  revised  by  Mr.  Mitchell,  and  re 
printed  in  booklet  form  by  the  Academy  Press,  Norwich,  Connecticut,  1906. 

35 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

I  pity  those  young  folks  who  pass  their  early  years  without  hav 
ing  any  home  knowledge  of  gardens  or  orchards.  City  schools  and 
city  pavements  are  all  very  well;  but  I  think  if  my  childish  feet 
had  not  known  of  every-day  trampings  through  garden  alleys  or  on 
wood  walks,  and  of  climbings  in  hay-lofts  or  among  apple  boughs 
when  fruit  began  to  turn,  half  of  the  joys  of  boyhood,  as  I  look 
back  at  them,  would  be  plucked  away. 

So  it  happens,  that  when  I  am  asked  for  some  reminiscences  of 
those  early  days,  gone  for  sixty  years  or  more,  the  great  trees  that 
sheltered  my  first  home  stir  their  branches  again.  Again  I  see  the 
showers  of  dancing  petals  from  the  May  bloom  of  apple  or  of  peach 
trees  strewing  the  grass,  or  the  brown  garden  mold,  with  a  little 
of  that  old  exultation  of  feeling  which  is  almost  as  good  as  a 
prayer — in  way  of  thanksgiving. 

I  think  I  could  find  my  way  now  through  all  the  involvements 
of  new  buildings  and  new  plantings  on  ground  that  I  have  not 
visited  for  fifty  years,  to  the  spot  where  the  blood  peach  grew,  and 
where  the  mulberry  stood  and  the  greengage  loaded  with  fruit  in 
its  harvest  time,  and  the  delightful  white-blooming  crab,  lifting 
its  odors  into  the  near  window  of  the  "boys'  room." 

Then  there  was  a  curiously  misshapen  apple  tree  in  the  far 
orchard,  with  trunk  almost  prone  upon  the  ground,  as  if  Providence 
had  designed  it  for  children  to  clamber  upon.  What  a  tree  it  was 
to  climb  !  There  many  a  time  we  toddlers  used  to  sit,  pondering 
on  our  future,  when  the  young  robins  in  the  nest  overhead  would 
be  fully  fledged,  catching  glimpses,  too,  before  yet  leaves  were 
fully  out,  of  the  brown  hermitage  or  study  upon  the  near,  wooded 
hillside,  where  my  father,  who  was  a  clergyman,  wrought  at  his 
sermons. 

It  is  only  a  dim  image  of  him  that  I  can  conjure  up  as  he  strode 
at  noontime  down  the  hill.  Catching  up  the  youngest  of  us  with  a 
joyous,  proud  laugh,  he  led  the  toddling  party — the  nurse  bringing 
up  the  rear — in  a  rollicking  procession  homeward. 

A  more  distinct  yet  less  home-like  image  of  this  clergyman  I 

36 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YOUTH 

have  in  mind  as  he  leaned  over  the  pulpit  of  a  Sunday,  with  a 
solemnity  of  manner  that  put  one  in  awe,  and  with  an  earnestness 
of  speech  that  made  the  Bible  stories  he  expounded  seem  very 
real. 

But  the  sermons  of  those  days  were  very  long  for  children.  It 
must  have  been,  usually,  before  the  middle  of  the  discourse  that  I 
went  foraging  about  the  square  pew,  visiting  an  aunt  who  almost 
always  had  peppermints  in  her  bag,  or  in  lack  of  this  diversion  I 
could  toy  with  the  foot-stove  under  my  mother's  gown,  or  build 
fortifications  with  the  hymn-books. 

The  "lesser"  Westminster  Catechism  also,  with  which  we  had 
wrestlings,  was  somewhat  heavy  and  intellectually  remote.  But 
it  was  pleasantly  tempered  by  the  play  of  the  parlor  fire,  or  the 
benignly  approving  smiles  when  answerings  were  prompt.  In 
summer  weather  the  song  of  a  cat-bird  or  brown-thrasher  in  the 
near  tulip-tree  chased  away  all  the  tedium  of  the  Westminster 
divines,  or  perhaps  lifted  it  into  a  celestial  atmosphere. 

The  Bible  stories,  though,  as  they  tripped  from  my  mother's 
tongue,  were  always  delightful.  I  thought  then,  and  still  think — 
at  sixty-nine  ! — that  her  ways  of  religious  teaching  were  by  many 
odds  better  than  that  of  the  Westminster  divines.  And  there  were 
some  of  her  readings  from  the  hymn-book  that  tingle  in  my  ears 
to-day. 

That  compulsory  Bible-reading,  chapter  after  chapter,  and  day 
by  day,  so  common  in  well-regulated  families  of  those  times,  has 
for  me  a  good  many  ungrateful  memories.  Wrathful,  unwhole 
some  burnings  were  kindled  by  this  enforced  rote  reading  of  a  book 
wherefrom  gladsome  and  hopeful  splendors  ought  to  shine. 

Of  other  earliest  reading  I  remember  with  distinctness  that 
great  budget  of  travel  and  adventure,  good  for  week-days  or  Sun 
day,  called  the  Pilgrim's  Progress.  Mercy,  and  Great-heart,  and 
Christian,  and  Giant  Despair,  too,  were  of  our  family.  Nor  can  I 
cease  to  call  to  mind  gratefully  the  good  woman,  Maria  Edge- 
worth,  who  in  the  earliest  days  of  our  listening  to  stories 

37 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

made  us  acquainted  with  the  "Basket-maker's"  children  who 
scotched  the  carriage  wheels,  and  with  "Lazy  Lawrence"  and 
"Eton  Montem." 

At  what  precise  age  I  went  to  my  first  school  I  cannot  say.  It 
may  have  been  five  or  six.  A  roundabout  blue  jacket  with  bell 
buttons  I  know  I  had,  and  a  proud  tramp  past  the  neighbors' 
houses. 

The  mistress  was  an  excellent  woman,  everybody  said,  with  a 
red  ruler  and  discipline,  and  spectacles.  A  tap  from  her  spectacle 
case  was  a  summons  every  morning  to  listen  to  her  reading,  in 
quiet  monotone,  of  a  chapter  in  the  Bible;  after  which,  in  the 
same  murmurous  way,  she  said  a  prayer.  She  taught  arithmetic 
out  of  Colburn,  I  think,  and  Woodbridge's  Geography  to  the  older 
ones;  but  her  prime  force  was  lavished  upon  spelling.  We  had 
field-days  in  that,  for  which  we  were  marshalled  by  companies, 
toeing  a  crack  in  the  open  floor.  What  an  admiring  gaze  I  lifted 
up  upon  the  tall  fellows  who  went  with  a  wondrous  glibness  through 
the  intricacies  of  such  words  as  "im-prac-ti-ca-bil-i-ty"  !  The 
mistress  had  her  own  curious  methods  of  punishment;  and  I  dimly 
remember  how  an  obstreperous  boy  was  once  shut  under  the  lid  of 
the  big  writing  desk — not  for  very  long,  I  suspect.  But  the  recol 
lection  of  it,  and  of  his  sharp  wail  of  protest,  gave  a  very  lively 
emphasis  to  my  reading,  years  after,  of  Rogers'  story  of  the  Italian 
bride  Ginevra,  who  closed  the  lid  of  a  Venetian  chest  upon  herself 
in  some  remote  loft  where  her  skeleton,  and  her  yellowed  laces, 
were  found  years  afterward  by  accident.  Another  of  the  mistress's 
methods  of  subduing  masculine  revolt  was  in  tying  a  girl's  bonnet 
upon  a  boy's  head.  I  have  a  lingering  sense  now  of  some  such 
early  chastisement,  and  of  the  wearisome  pasteboard  stiffness,  and 
odors  of  the  bonnet ! 

Of  associates  on  those  school  benches,  I  remember  with  most  dis 
tinctness  a  tallish  boy  [William  Henry  Huntington,  1820-1885],  my 
senior  by  two  years  or  so,  who  befriended  me  in  many  skirmishes, 
decoyed  me  often  into  his  leafy  dooryard,  half-way  to  my  home, 

38 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YOUTH 

where  luscious  cherries  grew,  and  by  a  hundred  kindly  offices  dur 
ing  many  succeeding  years  cemented  a  friendship  of  which  I 
have  been  always  proud.  A  photograph  of  his  emaciated,  but 
noble  face,  as  he  lay  upon  his  deathbed  in  Paris,  is  before  me  as 
I  write. 

Another  first  school  which  I  knew  as  privileged  pupil — not  es 
teeming  the  privilege  largely — was  in  the  old  town  of  Wethersfield, 
where  I  went  on  visits  to  my  grandfather.  .  .  .  The  school  to 
which  the  old  gentleman  introduced  me  solemnly  was  near  by,  and 
of  the  Lancastrian  order.  Mr.  Joseph  Lancaster  had  come  over 
from  England  not  many  years  before  to  indoctrinate  America. 
There  was  great  drill  of  limbs  and  voices;  but  what  specially  im 
pressed  me  was  a  long  tray  or  trough  of  moistened  sand,  where  we 
were  taught  to  print  letters.  I  think  I  came  there  to  a  trick  of 
making  printed  letters  which  was  never  lost. 

There  was  a  quiet  dignity  about  Wethersfield  streets  in  that 
day.  There  were  great  quiet  houses  before  which  mighty  trees 
grew — houses  of  the  Welleses,  of  the  Chesters,  of  the  Webbs — in 
some  of  which  Washington  had  lodged  in  his  comings  or  goings. 
It  was  through  that  quiet  Wethersfield  street,  and  by  way  of  the 
"Stage"  office  at  Slocomb's  Hotel  in  Hartford,  that  I  must  have 
traveled  first  to  Judge  Hall's  Ellington  school.  There  for  six  en 
suing  years,  off  and  on,  I  wrestled  with  arithmetic  and  declamation, 
and  Latin  and  Greek.  It  was  a  huge  building — every  vestige  gone 
now — upon  a  gentle  eminence  overlooking  a  peaceful  valley  town. 
I  am  sure  some  glimpses  of  the  life  there  must  have  found  their 
way  into  some  little  books  which  I  have  had  the  temerity  to  pub 
lish. 

The  principal,  a  kindly,  dignified  old  gentleman,  lived  apart,  in 
a  house  amongst  gardens  and  orchards;  but  the  superintendent, 
the  English  master,  the  matron,  and  the  monitors  were  all  housed 
with  us,  and  looked  sharply  after  discipline.  When  I  hear  boys  of 
near  kith  complaining  of  the  hardships  they  endure,  I  love  to  set 
before  them  a  picture  of  the  cold  chambers  opening  upon  the  corri- 

39 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

dors  in  that  huge  building.  We  dressed  there  by  the  dim  light 
coming  through  ventilators  over  the  doors,  from  lamps  swinging 
in  the  hall.  After  this  it  was  needful  to  take  a  swift  rush  out  of 
doors,  in  all  weathers,  for  a  plunge  into  the  washroom  door,  where 
\*e  made  our  ablutions.  Another  outside  rush  followed  for  the 
doors  opening  upon  the  dining-hall,  where  morning  prayers  were 
said.  Then  an  hour  of  study  in  a  room  reeking  with  the  fumes  of 
whale-oil  lamps  went  before  the  summons  to  breakfast.  There 
were  two  schoolrooms.  The  larger  was  always  presided  over  by  a 
teacher  who  was  nothing  if  not  watchful.  The  smaller  was  allotted 
to  a  higher  range  of  boys,  and  here  the  superintendent  appeared 
at  intervals  to  hear  recitations. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  pride  and  joy  with  which  I  heard  the 
superintendent — I  think  it  was  Judge  Taft,  thereafter  Attorney 
General,  and  Minister  to  Russia — announce,  once  upon  a  time,  my 
promotion  to  the  south  schoolroom.  Frank  Blair,  the  general  of 
Chickamauga,  was  a  bench-mate  with  me  there.  Once  upon  a 
'''composition"  day  we  were  pitted  against  each  other;  but  who 
won  the  better  marks  I  really  cannot  say.  Teacher  Taft  [Alphonso, 
father  of  the  Hon.  William  Howard  Taft]  was  an  athlete.  He 
could  whip  with  enormous  vigor,  some  boys  said;  but  I  have  only 
the  kindest  recollections  of  him.  I  used  to  look  on  with  amazed 
gratification  as  he  lifted  six  "fifty-sixes,"  strung  upon  a  pole,  in 
the  little  grocery  shop  past  which  we  walked  on  our  way  to  swim 
in  Snipsic  Lake. 

What  a  beautiful  sheet  of  water  it  was  in  those  days  !  Its  old 
shores  are  now  all  submerged  and  blotted  out  by  manufacturers' 
dams.  What  a  joyous,  rollicking  progress  we  made  homeward,  of 
a  Saturday  afternoon,  with  the  cupola  and  the  great  bulk  of  build 
ing  lifting  in  our  front  against  the  western  sky ! 

The  strong  point  of  the  teaching  at  Ellington  was,  I  think, 
Latin.  I  am  certain  that  before  half  my  time  there  was  up,  I 
could  repeat  all  the  rules  in  Adam's  Latin  Grammar  verbatim, 
backward  or  forward.  As  for  longs  and  shorts  and  results  and 

40 


ANCESTRY  AND  EARLY  YOUTH 

quantities  and  the  makeup  of  a  proper  hexameter,  these  were 
driven  into  my  brain  and  riveted.  Even  now  I  am  dimly  conscious 
on  uneasy  nights,  of  the 

Qttadrupedante  putrem  sonitu 

making  its  way  through  my  dreams  with  the  old  schoolboy  gallop. 
I  could  stretch  this  screed  farther,  but  the  types  forbid.  The 
home,  with  a  glimpse  of  which  I  began  the  paper,  had  been  broken 
up  a  long  time  before  the  high  school  experience  came  to  an  end. 
Later,  in  the  spring  of  1837,  the  shattered,  invalid  remnant  of  its 
flock  was  sailing  homeward  from  a  winter  in  Santa  Cruz.  In  July 
of  the  same  year  I  set  off  from  Ellington,  by  the  "Hartford,  Ware, 
and  Keene  Dispatch  Line"  of  stages,  seated  beside  the  driver, 
with  twenty  dollars  in  my  pocket  and  my  trunk  on  the  roof  of 
the  coach,  to  enter  Yale  College. 


Ill 

THE  YALE  DAYS 

The  scene  now  changes  to  the  cloister  of  a  college — not  the 
gray,  classic  cloisters  which  lie  along  the  banks  of  the  Cam  or  the 
Isis  .  .  .  nor  yet  the  cavernous,  quadrangular  courts  that  sleep 
under  the  dingy  walls  of  the  Sorbonne.  The  youth-dreams  .  .  . 
begin  under  the  roof  of  one  of  those  long,  ungainly  piles  of  brick 
and  mortar  which  make  the  colleges  of  New  England. — Dream 
Life,  118-119. 

It  would  be  strange  if  you,  in  that  cloister  life  of  a  college,  did 
not  sometimes  feel  a  dawning  of  new  resolves.  They  grapple  you, 
indeed,  oftener  than  you  dare  speak  of.  Here,  you  dream  first  of 
that  very  sweet,  but  very  shadowy  success,  called  reputation.— 
Dream  Life,  132. 

The  long  and  close  connection  of  the  family  with  Yale 
College  undoubtedly  gave  it  foremost  place  in  the  affections 
of  Alfred  Mitchell's  sons;  and  yet  Stephen,  the  first  of  them, 
turned  elsewhere.  Donald  used  to  relate  with  keen  zest 
how  his  brother,  in  the  summer  of  1835,  having  driven  over 
to  Williamstown,  Massachusetts,  to  visit  Williams  College, 
met  upon  his  entrance  to  the  town  "only  a  cow  and  a  horse 
grazing  on  the  commons,"  and  disgruntled  at  the  rural  ap 
pearance  and  quietness  of  the  place,  went  on  to  Northamp 
ton  and  entered  Amherst.  We  may  be  sure,  however,  that 
Ellington  boys  were  given  a  strong  urge  toward  Yale,  and 
there  is  nothing  to  show  that  Donald  ever  thought  of  con 
tinuing  his  education  elsewhere  than  at  the  New  Haven  col 
lege. 

42 


THE    YALE    DAYS 

We  of  the  present  need,  perhaps,  to  be  reminded  of  the 
New  Haven  and  the  Yale  of  1837,  when  the  fifteen-year-old 
Donald  and  four  of  his  Ellington  comrades,  like  young 
knights  upon  a  strange,  new  quest,  first  came  driving  along 
the  pleasant,  shaded  streets.  New  Haven  was  then  an  iso 
lated  town  of  some  13,000  inhabitants — a  kind  of  backwoods 
Athens.  Not  until  two  years  later  was  railway  connection 
with  the  outside  world  established.  The  Farmington  Canal 
was  then  a  main  road  of  traffic,  and  stage-coaches  the  chief 
means  of  travel.  It  was  for  the  most  part  a  wood-burning 
town,  anthracite  coal  having  been  introduced  only  ten  years 
before.  Even  prior  to  1837,  however,  the  beauty-loving  zeal 
of  James  Hillhouse  had  been  instrumental  in  transforming 
New  Haven  into  the  "City  of  Elms." 

The  college  was  equally  primitive.  The  faculty  num 
bered  only  31;  the  total  attendance  in  all  departments 
was  but  564.  The  physical  aspect  of  things  on  and  around 
the  campus  has  changed  almost  beyond  recognition.  "Of 
the  ancient  architectural  regime  at  Yale,  where  there  was 
uniformity,  if  ugliness;  and  where  one  was  not  disturbed 
by  a  variance  of  style  as  large  and  multitudinous  as  the  ca 
prices  of  the  respective  builders  or  donors,'*  as  Mr.  Mitchell 
once  playfully  but  not  without  seriousness  remarked,  only 
Connecticut  Hall — the  old  "South  Middle" — remains.  The 
old  State  House  still  occupied  the  corner  of  Chapel  and  Col 
lege  Streets,  and  the  three  churches  on  the  Green  then,  as 
now,  lifted  their  spires  upward. 

Late  in  life,  Mr.  Mitchell  wrote  two  delightful  accounts 
of  his  college  days.  These  reminiscences,  even  though  only 
memories  of  youthful  experiences  lingering  in  a  mature  mind 
after  the  lapse  of  more  than  forty-five  years,  are  yet  worth 
far  more  than  any  conjectural  account.  In  the  following 

43 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

paragraphs,  and  in  other  places  throughout  this  chapter,  the 
two  are  woven  together: 

Four  of  us  from  the  old  school  at  Ellington  who  were  to  be 
bunched  together  upon  the  agony  seats  of  examination  came  bounc 
ing  and  see-sawing  together  over  the  thorough-braces  of  a  Hartford 
coach — down  through  Berlin  and  Meriden  and  Wallingford,  past 
plains  of  sand,  past  lines  of  poplars,  through  Whitneyville  gun- 
works  and  thence  by  a  long,  straight  stretch  past  woods  and  fields 
and  silences  (save  our  own  bubbling  talk)  to  the  northern  end  of 
Temple  Street — amazing  even  then  for  its  beauty  of  overarching 
elms — and  to  the  proper  beginning  of  the  town,  where  were  then 
only  sparse  white  houses  and  lamps  that  could  be  counted.  But 
on  the  east  side  of  the  Green,  midway  between  Chapel  and  Elm 
streets,  where  the  great  suite  of  the  Tontine  parlors  and  the  bar 
room  and  hall  flung  their  light  across  the  way,  there  was  brilliancy 
indeed ! 

The  Tontine  of  that  day  was  a  great  hostelry.  I  know  that 
we  all  who  had  been  dressing  our  feathers  in  country  quarters  for  a 
progress  through  the  courts  of  Yale,  never  dreamed  of  any  other 
way  of  entrance  than  by  the  lobby  of  the  Tontine.  Its  very  name 
had  a  foreign  smack  which  seemed  to  make  it  redolent  of  classicism 
and  of  Italy. 

The  freshman  examinations  of  that  far  away  day  were  held  in 
the  college  chapel.  There  were  six  of  us  that  went  in  a  little 
squad  together,  rallying  our  spirits  by  such  bantering  talk  as  we 
could  muster,  across  the  Green  upon  that  memorable  October 
morning  of  1837.  The  really  fine  proportions  of  the  old  State 
House  impressed  us  greatly,  and  I  think  a  pleasant  altercation 
arose  among  us  as  to  what  Greek  temple  it  was  modeled  after, 
whether  of  Theseus  or  Diana  or  the  Parthenon;  and  I  remember 
that  the  boy  who  floored  us  all  by  his  erudition  outside  was  the 
one  who  was  worst  conditioned  of  us  all  when  we  came  to  the  agony 
in  the  Chapel. 


THE    YALE    DAYS 

The  terrors  of  the  ordeal  were  very  much  softened  by  the  kindly 
words  of  the  tall,  portly  gentleman  [Benjamin  Silliman],  with  long 
head  and  close-cropped  white  hair,  who  presided  over  the  examin 
ing  board  that  year;  and  who  held  kingship  in  all  the  laboratories 
of  the  college  that  year,  and  many  years  thereafter.  I  can  recall, 
as  if  it  were  yesterday,  the  mingled  suavity  and  dignity  with  which 
he  confronted  us,  and  how  the  multitudinous  crow-foot  wrinkles 
planted  themselves  on  either  side  of  his  brow  as  he  gave  us  a  be 
nignant,  approving  smile,  and  straightway  slipped  into  a  little  cur 
rent  of  kindly  admonition  with  the  same  rhythmic  gush  of  words 
which  belonged  to  him  always,  and  which  purled  away  from  his 
mouth  every  Sunday  night  at  college  prayers  in  a  melodious,  allit 
erative  flow  of  rounded  vocables  that  seems  to  me  must  be  re 
sounding  and  reverberating  still  in  some  remote  heavenly  depths. 
His  manner  had  all  the  warmth  of  a  blessing  in  it,  and  put  us  into 
a  cheery  humor. 

Even  in  those  days,  when  seventy-five  made  a  good  class  num 
ber,  it  was  not  easy  to  find  lodging  in  the  college  proper.  It  has 
sometimes  been  matter  of  regret  with  me  that  I  could  not  put 
"South  Middle"  in  the  schedule  of  my  youthful  opportunities; 
but  I  had  cozy  quarters  down  College  Street  beyond  Crown  in  a 
house  [then  Mr.  Gad  Day's]  which,  with  some  modern  addenda, 
still  beams  its  old  welcome  from  the  up-stair  front,  broad  as  the 
day.1  There  I  was  chummed  with  a  noble-hearted  fellow  and 

1  A  pleasant  additional  and  confirmatory  bit  of  reminiscence  from  Mr.  Mitchell's 
Preface  to  the  Semi-Centennial  Historical  and  Biographical  Record  of  the  Class  of 
1841  in  Yale  College  must  find  place  here:  "There  were  aspects  of  college  life  familiar 
to  those  who  .  .  .  roomed  in  college  which  were  totally  unknown  to  those  who  lived 
outside.  He  was  cognizant  of  hazings  and  smokings,  about  which  as  a  dweller  in 
the  town  the  present  writer  knew  nothing  practically.  Nor  was  'living  outside* 
the  barbarism  that  it  would  seem  to  be  now,  when  college  dormitories  are  every 
year  more  and  more  gorgeously  equipped.  Yale  men  of  that  day  were  not  Sybarites. 
And  if,  as  townsman,  I  knew  nothing  of  the  hazings  and  aromatic  incense  burning 
about  'South  Middle,'  I  had  a  very  vital  knowledge  of  the  hardship  of  being  routed 
from  bed  at  half-past  five,  and  of  toiling  in  the  winter  season  through  snowdrifts 
(before  the  days  of  Goodyear  rubber  boots)  to  college  prayers  at  six;  where  the 
obscurity  of  the  old  chapel  was  lighted  only  by  whale-oil  lamps,  flickering  in  the 
frosty  atmosphere,  and  where  the  uneasy  shuffling  of  benumbed  feet  was  sure  to 

45 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

friend,  Jacob  Perkins,  who  in  the  fifties  came  to  great  honor  and 
great  success  in  his  native  state  of  Ohio — as  he  richly  deserved 
to — and  died  in  Cuba  [1859]  with  his  harvest  of  honors  only  half 
garnered.  For  the  three  succeeding  years  of  the  college  life  I  held 
my  eyrie  in  a  little  chamber  upon  the  corner  of  High  and  Chapel 
streets  [then  the  home  of  Dr.  J.  H.  Kain],  giving  view  in  those 
days  upon  the  works  of  a  zealous  little  cabinet  maker,  who  plied 
his  trade  and  set  his  newly  varnished  tables  to  dry  just  where  the 
front  porch  of  the  Art  School  now  invites  the  curious  stranger.  A 
snug  bureau  of  this  workman's  make  has  been  my  nightly  compan 
ion  for  fifty  years.  In  the  rear  of  these  shops,  on  what  is  now  the 
college  enclosure,  perhaps  covered  by  a  wing  of  the  new  Library,  I 
saw  at  every  nooning,  in  those  far  days,  a  file  of  black-habited 
theologues  go  in  to  their  daily  repast  in  the  eating  hall,  where 
boarding  "rates"  were  less  costly  than  in  the  larger  one  of  the  col 
lege  commons.  Next  door  to  this  refectory  lived  that  great  master 
of  the  Yale  printing  offices,  B.  L.  Hamlen,  Esq. 

Early  prayers  were  appointed  in  that  day  at  six  of  the  morning, 
the  college  bell-ringer  beginning  the  tintinnabulation  at  that  hour, 
and  rounding  it  off  with  the  tolling  and  the  monitory  final  jerk  of 
sound  at  a  quarter  past.  It  was  no  joke  to  wend  one's  way  from 
a  point  in  College  Street,  half  way  between  Crown  and  George, 
long  before  light  of  a  December  morning,  up  the  street  and  into 
the  chapel  whose  frosted  atmosphere  showed  a  steady  stream  of 


come  into  the  pauses  of  good  Dominie  Day's  tremulous  invocations.  After  this, 
we  groped  our  way — still  under  night  skies — to  the  Division  Rooms,  reeking 
with  oily  odors,  and  showing  steaming  pans  of  water  upon  the  tops  of  the  new 
'Olmstead's  patent  double  cylinder  stoves.' 

"By  lamp-light — which  daybreak  presently  made  dim — we  had  our  drowsy  reci 
tation;  then  came  the  rush,  not  over  eager,  or  with  much  Apician  zest,  to  our 
'Commons'  breakfast  of  half-past  seven,  under  the  benignant  mastership  of  Caleb 
Mix,  Steward.  If  a  boarder  was  ill,  and  proper  word  came  to  this  Benignity  of  the 
Commons,  there  was  sent  out  a  little  brown  pot  with  white  parallel  stripes  (capacity 
three  gills),  of  coffee  and  milk,  with  two  slices  of  bread  atop  of  it.  And  even  such  a 
breakfast  I  did  sometimes  devour  with  gusto,  when  the  snows  were  too  deep,  or 
the  way  not  clear  for  a  clandestine  slip  down  Chapel  Street  to  'Marm  Dean's'  .  .  . 
for  her  better  coffee  and  an  unctuous  bit  of  her  buttered  waffles." 

46 


THE    YALE    DAYS 

vapor  rising  up  from  the  good  old  president's  lips  as  he  uttered 
prayer.  And  when  a  lively  pelting  of  sleet  slanted  from  the  north 
and  a  crusted  snow  was  knee-deep  under  foot,  the  conditions  pro 
voked  a  good  deal  of  that  nerve  and  athleticism  which  college  men 
of  our  day  are  apt  to  think  has  only  come  in  with  boating  and  foot 
ball. 

After  the  morning  service,  no  matter  how  sodden  the  feet,  or 
how  aguish  the  limbs,  we  marched  in  a  loose,  tangled  procession 
to  the  recitation  rooms.  These  were  beastly  places  in  those  times, 
foul  with  whale-oil  smoke,  and  heated  with  Professor  Olmstead's 
patent  two-cylindered  stoves,  far  up  into  the  tune  of  the  eighties 
of  Fahrenheit.  I  have  an  uneasy  sensation  of  nausea  even  now  as 
I  recall  the  simmer  of  the  iron  pot  upon  the  stove,  the  steam  of  wet 
garments,  the  ancient  fish-oil  smell,  the  rustling  of  the  papers  as 
the  tutor  smoothed  out  his  check  list  and  probed  with  thumb  and 
forefinger  into  his  box  of  names.1 

[In  those  days  a  class  was  divided  into  middle,  south,  and 
north  divisions.]  We  of  the  North  in  that  time  made  up  a  little 
world  of  our  own,  revolving  with  others  about  the  greater  Kosmos 
of  the  college.  Only  on  great  field-days,  such  as  grew  out  of  an 
election  of  bully,  or  chairman,  or  a  health  lecture  from  the  kindly 
and  venerable  Dr.  Day,  did  we  meet  together  as  a  class  during  the 
two  first  college  years. 

President  Day  lived  in  a  quiet  little  home  that  with  its  garden 
occupied  ground  now  covered  by  Farnam  [Hall],  and  stretching 
back  over  that  portion  of  the  campus  lying  north  of  North  College. 
By  a  little  postern  opening  through  billowy  heaps  of  lilacs,  he 
wended  his  way — every  morning  of  winter  long  before  sunrise — 
to  pray  for  us,  and  all  backsliders ! 

I  remember — in  the  days  when  freshman  crudities  of  observa 
tion  were  not  as  yet  worn  off — gazing  admiringly  from  the  old  tim 
ber  bridge  which  crossed  the  canal  at  Chapel  Street,  upon  a  gaily 

1  In  connection  with  these  reminiscences  the  reader  will  thoroughly  enjoy  the 
"Cloister  Life"  chapter  of  Dream  Life,  and  will  recognize  the  solid  foundation  of 
fact  therein. 

47 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

equipped  barge  with  "splendid  accommodations  for  six  passen 
gers" — drawn  by  two  horses  with  ribbons  flaunting  from  their 
headgear,  and  setting  off  with  the  music  of  a  bugle  toward  the  up 
per  wilds  of  Farmington  and  Northampton.  I  do  not  think  that 
even  the  echoing  bugle  notes  beguiled  many  of  us  to  voyaging 
upon  the  canal.  As  a  rule,  we  preferred  the  "powerful  steamer 
New  York,  Captain  Stone,  Commander."  There  were  many  stage 
coaches,  too,  plying  to  the  interior  and  along  the  shore;  these  hav 
ing  their  rendezvous  for  the  most  part  at  an  old  coach  tavern  with 
a  Lombardy  poplar  near  it  which  once  stood  where  the  post-office 
building  now  [1895]  shadows  a  great  breadth  of  pavement  and  of 
car  tracks.  'T  was  known,  too,  and  told  to  incredulous  up- 
country  folk,  that  at  this  coach  centre  twenty-five  people  had  been 
"booked"  in  a  single  day  for  New  York  ! 

The  course  of  study  in  Mr.  Mitchell's  day  was  intended 
to  occasion  hard  work.  Latin,  Greek,  mathematics,  and 
philosophy  formed  the  bulk  of  it,  supplemented  by  rhetoric, 
logic,  natural  philosophy,  history,  Kent's  Commentaries  on 
American  Law,  Paley's  Natural  Theology,  and  Wayland's 
Political  Economy.  Especial  attention  was  given  to  literary 
training.  Written  translations  from  Latin  authors  were  pre 
sented  weekly  by  the  freshman  class;  specimens  of  English 
composition  were  exhibited  once  a  fortnight  by  each  member 
of  the  sophomore  and  the  junior  classes;  the  junior  and  the 
senior  classes  had  forensic  disputations  once  or  twice  a  week 
before  their  instructors;  and  "very  frequent  exercises  in 
declamation"  before  the  tutors,  the  professor  of  oratory, 
and  the  faculty  and  students  in  the  chapel,  made  up  a  tale 
of  work  from  which  there  could  be  little  escape.1  A  faculty 
of  strong  and  stern  but  kindly  men,  assisted  by  tutors,  ad 
ministered  this  curriculum.  Benjamin  Silliman  presided 

1  Yale  catalogues,  1837-1841. 

48 


THE    YALE    DAYS 

over  the  departments  of  chemistry,  pharmacy,  mineralogy, 
and  geology;  James  L.  Kingsley  was  professor  of  Latin, 
Theodore  D.  Woolsey,  of  Greek,  Chauncey  A.  Goodrich,  of 
rhetoric  and  oratory;  Denison  Olmstead  had  charge  of  the 
natural  philosophy  and  astronomy,  Anthony  D.  Stanley,  of 
the  mathematics. 

Of  these  courses  and  these  teachers,  Mr.  Mitchell  re 
tained  to  the  end  of  his  life  the  clearest  and  kindliest  of 
memories: 

There  were  [he  wrote  in  1882]  lectures  on  law,  on  Paley's  Nat- 
ural  Theology,  on  rhetoric  and  forensic  exercises,  which  brought  us 
together  in  the  old  "Rhetorical  Chamber"  for  the  most  part. 
Few  things  in  our  disputatious  life  are  finer,  I  think,  than  the  fresh 
aroma  of  unshackled,  adventurous,  exuberant,  lusty  college  ora 
tory.  But  there  was  eloquence  of  another  sort  when  our  professor 
of  rhetoric,  Dr.  G[oodrich],  an  intensely  nervous  man,  with  a  wild 
eye  and  a  bulging  forehead,  set  himself  to  the  task  of  demonstrat 
ing  how  the  great  orators  of  England  had  talked  in  their  time.  It 
was  no  perfunctory  way  he  had;  but  he  grew,  swift  as  language 
could  carry  him,  into  the  old  occasions  of  parliamentary  debate, 
lashed  himself  into  more  than  Burke's  rage  over  the  wrongs  of  the 
poor  Begums  of  India,  thundered  his  anathemas,  with  eye  flashing 
and  lips  trembling,  upon  the  head  of  Hastings,  then  fell  away  as 
easily  into  an  oily  tone  and  sardonic  irony  as  he  read  through, 
with  faultless  cadence,  long  passages  from  the  "Letter  to  a  Noble 
Lord."  Burke  and  Pitt  and  Sheridan  and  Chatham  grew  under 
his  declamatory  power  and  his  admiring  comment  into  a  lordly 
stature  from  which  in  these  forty  years  past  I  fear  they  have  fallen 
lamentably  away. 

Still  more  distinctly  than  the  eloquent-talking  Professor  G[ood- 
rich],  I  have  in  mind  the  lithe  old  gentleman  [David  Daggett]  with 
the  springy  step  and  the  eager,  eagle-like  look,  which  his  great 
Roman  nose  made  vivid,  who  talked  to  us  of  Kent,  his  Commen- 

49 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

tariesy  and  of  the  wide  realms  of  law.  He  was  fast  verging  on 
eighty  in  those  days,  yet  erect  and  agile,  and  his  voice  sonorous. 
He  was  bravely  outspoken,  too,  and  his  political  affiliations — for  he 
brought  senatorial  dignities  with  him — shone  out  in  little  swift 
gleams  of  satire  that  garnished  his  law  talk.  He  had  been  judge, 
senator,  and  chief  justice,  and  we  stood  in  great  awe  of  him. 
"Young  gentlemen,"  I  think  I  hear  him  say — he  was  always  courte 
ous — "Young  gentlemen,  for  more  than  fifty  years  I  have  been  en 
gaged  in  courts  and  offices  of  law,  and  in  all  that  long  period  I  have 
met  with  many  and  many  an  instance  where  parents  have  despoiled 
themselves  for  the  benefit  of  their  children;  but  scarce  one  child, 
scarce  one  [a  little  louder]  who  has  despoiled  himself  for  the  benefit 
of  his  parents."  No  figure  of  the  old  college  days  is  more  present 
to  me  than  that  of  this  active,  brisk,  erect  old  gentleman,  in  small 
clothes  and  in  top  boots,  he  being  the  last,  I  think,  to  carry  these 
august  paraphernalia  of  the  past  along  New  Haven  streets.  He 
picked  his  way  mincingly  over  the  uneven  pavements,  tapping 
here  and  there  with  his  cane,  rather  to  give  point  to  his  reflections, 
I  think,  than  from  any  infirmness;  bowing  pleasantly  here  and 
there  with  an  old-school  lift  of  the  hat;  full  of  courtesies,  full  of 
dignity,  too;  and  a  perfect  master  of  deportment. 

Donald's  college  life  began  under  a  shadow.  All  of  his 
school-days,  in  fact,  from  the  early  Ellington  period,  were 
disturbed  by  his  own  ill  health  and  the  sufferings  and  deaths 
of  those  in  his  family  circle.  His  earliest  memories  were 
associated  with  the  deaths  of  an  infant  brother  and  a  baby 
sister.  He  felt  keenly  the  sufferings  of  his  brother  Louis, 
four  years  his  junior,  upon  whom  a  childhood  illness,  badly 
treated,  had  left  serious  physical  disabilities,  against  which 
he  struggled  calmly,  patiently,  and  cheerfully  all  his  life. 
From  the  Woodbridge  ancestry  there  came  a  tendency  to 
consumption,  which  laid  a  heavy  toll  upon  the  family  of 
Alfred  Mitchell — Donald  himself  overcoming  the  disease 
only  by  most  favoring  circumstances  of  which  we  shall  learn 

50 


THE    YALE    DAYS 

later  on.  During  the  winter  of  1836-1837,  Mrs.  Mitchell, 
with  Stephen  and  Elizabeth — those  upon  whom  the  disease 
had  laid  strongest  hold — sought  refuge  from  the  rigors  of  the 
New  England  climate  in  Santa  Cruz,  returning,  a  "shattered, 
invalid  remnant,"  on  June  loth,  1837,  just  a  few  weeks  before 
Donald's  visit  to  New  Haven  to  arrange  the  details  of  his 
entrance  to  Yale. 

Stephen  had  returned  from  Santa  Cruz  so  much  stronger 
that  he  undertook  the  management  of  his  mother's  farm  at 
Salem,  where  he  became  greatly  interested  in  stock-breeding. 
In  November  1838,  while  attending  the  fair  of  the  American 
Institute  in  New  York  City,  he  contracted  a  cold  which 
sealed  his  pulmonary  difficulties.  Donald,  who  was  follow 
ing  his  brother's  farming  operations  with  zeal,  and  who  was 
undoubtedly  urging  even  then  those  amenities  of  farm  life 
which  he  later  advocated  with  such  grace  and  telling  effect, 
records  the  fact  that  under  the  steady  approaches  of  the 
disease,  Stephen  gave  up  active  farming  and  stock-raising 
for  poultry-keeping;  and  afterward,  when  too  weak  to  go  out 
to  the  hen-house,  turned  to  the  care  of  cage-birds  in  his  room. 
On  the  29th  of  March  1839,  the  mother  died.  Within  a  few 
weeks  Stephen  followed  her.  Elizabeth,  the  beautiful  and 
fragile  fifteen-year-old  sister,  lingered  with  little  more  than 
two  years  of  life  before  her.  As  yet,  the  scourge  had  scarcely 
laid  its  touch  upon  Lucretia,  the  last  remaining  sister.1 

1  The  following  record  of  the  children  of  Alfred  and  Lucretia  Mitchell  tells  its 
own  story: 

Lucretia  Woodbridge,  b.  April  1816;  d.  in  infancy. 
Stephen  Mix,  b.  April  I3th,  1818;  d.  May  3Oth,  1839. 
Lucretia  Woodbridge,  b.  June  24th,  1820;  d.  Jan.  i6th,  1845. 
Donald  Grant,  b.  April  I2th,  1822;  d.  Dec.  i$th,  1908.* 
Elizabeth  Mumford,  b.  July  yth,  1824;  d.  Sept.  6th,  1841. 
Louis,  b.  Nov.  yth,  1826;  d.  July  I5th,  1881. 
Mary  Perkins,  b.  April  1829;  d.  April  1st,  1830. 
Alfred,  b.  March  1830;  d.  in  infancy. 
Alfred,  b.  April  ist,  1832;  d.  April  27th,  191  iu 

51 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

Throughout  the  four  years  such  events  constituted  the  mel 
ancholy  background  of  Donald's  college  life.  All  of  this  time 
his  own  health  was  threatened — he  never  from  childhood 
knew  rugged  health — and  there  settled  down  upon  him  a 
seriousness  and  a  gloom  from  which  he  never  entirely 
emerged. 

In  the  summer  of  1839  came  the  final  breaking-up  of  the 
Mitchell  home.  Gen.  William  Williams,  an  old  Norwich 
friend  of  the  father  and  the  mother,  was  appointed  to  the 
guardianship  of  the  children.  Donald  had  been  spending 
most  of  his  college  vacations  with  his  cousin,  Mary  Goddard, 
who,  since  1838,  had  been  living  upon  the  old  Mumford 
homestead,  Elmgrove,  in  Salem.  After  his  mother's  death, 
Elmgrove  became  his  home,  and  the  self-sacrificing  cousin 
became  to  him  a  foster-mother.  Indeed,  for  the  three  sur 
viving  members  of  Alfred  Mitchell's  family — Donald,  Louis, 
and  Alfred — Elmgrove,  and  later  Glenside,  her  Norwich 
residence,  were  always  homes,  and  Mary  Goddard  always  a 
mother. 

It  was  Donald's  custom  during  his  college  course  to  buy 
a  horse  and  buggy  in  New  Haven  and  drive  to  Salem.  After 
a  summer  of  farm  work  he  returned  in  the  same  way  to  New 
Haven  and  disposed  of  his  equipage.  As  he  used  to  say, 
"those  were  the  days  when  college  students  did  not  keep 
their  own  horses."  During  his  long  drives  of  more  than 
fifty  miles  over  the  quiet  roads  and  through  the  drowsy  vil 
lages  of  Connecticut,  the  youthful  student  had  plenty  of  time 
for  reflection  and  revery.  He  came  to  know  all  the  moods  of 
this  Connecticut  country,  and  began  that  habit — so  manifest 
throughout  his  writings — of  investing  natural  scenery  with 
his  own  feelings.  If  he  knew  sorrow,  he  also  knew  the  com 
pensations  of  Nature  and  turned  to  her  as  to  a  mother  for 

52 


THE    YALE    DAYS 

comfort  and  healing.  Home-loving  by  native  grace,  a  grace 
nurtured  by  the  sorrows  and  experiences  of  those  early  days, 
he  came  to  look  forward  to  the  possession  of  a  home  of  his 
own  as  the  "bright,  blessed,  adorable  phantom  which  sits 
highest  on  the  sunny  horizon  that  girdeth  life."  l  In  his 
college  room  he  likewise  cultivated  the  homelike  qualities. 
One  of  his  first  purchases  at  Yale  was  a  painting  for  his  room. 
A  bureau,  hand-made  to  his  order,  occupied  a  corner.  Books 
and  small  bits  of  bric-a-brac  chosen  for  their  personal  appeal 
added  their  cheer  and  comfort  to  the  surroundings.  Like  a 
nautilus,  he  was  at  work  upon  the  chambered  cell  wherein 
year  after  year  his  soul  was  to  build  more  stately  mansions. 
Notwithstanding  the  family  sorrows,  Donald  held  closely 
to  his  college  tasks,  and  there  is  abundant  evidence  that  he 
went  in  for  study.  "We  had  to  buckle  to  it,"  was  his  own 
comment  in  after  years.  His  scholarship  record,  perhaps 
because  of  the  conditions  at  home  and  the  uncertain  state  of 
his  own  health,  was  not  unusually  high.  He  made  a  good 
record  in  all  subjects,  but  gave  his  attention  chiefly  to  litera 
ture.  He  was  thus  early,  by  sure  instinct,  seeking  the  things 
which  would  be  of  most  value  to  him  in  his  life-work.  Dur 
ing  the  college  year  1838-1839  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  re 
porting  to  home  friends  that  he  had  been  awarded  eight 
dollars  as  a  first  prize  for  some  Latin  translation.  Under  the 
direction  of  Professor  Woolsey  he  seems  to  have  enjoyed 
to  the  full  the  work  in  Greek.  In  a  first  edition  of  Long 
fellow's  Voices  of  the  Night — one  of  his  favorite  books  in  col 
lege  and  always — there  is  a  pencilled  verse  translation  of  the 
lines  from  Euripides  with  which  Mr.  Longfellow  prefaced 
his  poems — lines,  as  Mr.  Mitchell  wrote  later,  that  "caught 
a  gay  scansion  from  many  an  enthusiast  who  was  not  given 

1  Reveries,  79-80. 

53 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

to  Greek  in  general."  The  translation  bears  date  of  1840, 
and  may  be  taken  as  indicative  of  the  skill  in  language  which 
the  boy  of  eighteen  was  acquiring: 

Good  old  Father  Night, 

Sleep-giver  to  toiling  men, 

Come  hither,  haste  hither  thy  flight, 

To  the  Agamemnonian  home; 

Else  our  cares  and  our  sorrows  will  quite 

Our  hearts  overcome,  overcome  ! 

As  a  well-earned  reward  of  his  school-days,  classical  phrases 
and  references — what  Paul  Elmer  More  refers  to  as  a  "trick 
of  easy,  high-bred  quotation" — came  spontaneously  to  Mr. 
Mitchell  throughout  life,  and  add  much  to  the  pleasure 
derived  from  a  reading  of  his  literary  work. 

Mr.  Mitchell  has  not  left  us  in  doubt  concerning  his  lit 
erary  enthusiasms  in  college.  His  casual  references  to  the 
books  and  the  men  that  interested  him  enable  us  to  form  a 
pretty  clear  notion  of  his  growing  mind.  He  kept  an  eager 
watch  for  the  work  of  the  best  contemporary  writers,  and 
began  the  collection  of  an  extensive  library.  As  a  freshman 
he  bought  and  enjoyed  the  first  Poems  of  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes.  Emerson's  address  on  "The  American  Scholar" 
(1837),  and  in  particular  his  "Address  to  the  Senior  Class  in 
Divinity  College,  Cambridge  "  (i  838),  were  earnestly  scanned 
by  the  young  collegian.  "I  remember  well,"  he  wrote, 
"how  the  echoes  of  that  talk  to  divinity  students  came  eddy 
ing  over  the  quiet  latitudes  of  New  Haven,  challenging  eager 
young  thinkers  to  a  strange  unrest,  and  inviting  the  heartiest 
maledictions  of  orthodox  teachers,  who  would  consign  this 
audacious  talker  to  quick  oblivion."  1  The  writings  of  the 

1  American  Lands  and  Letters,  2.  94. 

54 


THE    YALE    DAYS 

"yellow-haired,  blue-eyed  giant,  John  Wilson,"  came  in  for 
their  share  of  admiration.  A  complete  set  of  Edmund  Burke 
found  place  upon  his  book-shelves  and  came  to  keen  and  ap 
preciative  reading.  Within  a  twelvemonth  of  their  issue 
(1836-1837),  as  he  took  pleasure  in  recalling,  the  beautiful 
sextet  of  Moxon's  volumes  of  Wordsworth  were  lying 
thumb- worn  on  his  desk.1  In  the  winter  of  1840  he  was  an 
interested  listener  to  Richard  H.  Dana's  lectures  on  Shake 
speare.  "We  upon  the  oaken  benches  were  not  great  lovers 
of  sermons  in  those  days,  or  of  preachers,"  wrote  Mr. 
Mitchell,  yet  he  bears  witness  to  the  pleasure  with  which  he 
and  his  fellows  listened  to  the  occasional  preaching  of  Horace 
Bushnell  in  the  old  college  chapel.2  One  of  his  college  note 
books  contains  excerpts  from  more  than  120  writers,  Eng 
lish,  French,  Greek,  and  Latin,  with  many  of  his  favorite 
Biblical  passages — all  neatly  copied  out,  and  in  many  in 
stances  commented  upon. 

While  he  applied  himself  with  commendable  diligence  to 
his  studies  and  enjoyed  thoroughly  the  freedom  of  indulging 
his  own  tastes  in  outside  literary  readings,  it  is  certain  that 
he  shrank  from  what  is  to-day  thought  of  as  social  life.  "I 
was  given  to  solitude  rather  than  to  companionship  during 
my  childhood  and  youth,"  is  the  substance  of  a  comment  on 
his  early  life  which  he  once  made.  That  intense  shyness 
which  was  to  be  so  marked  a  quality  of  his  entire  mature 
life  was  now  during  his  college  days  beginning  to  manifest 
itself.  His  daughter  Elizabeth  recalls  his  telling  that  while 
a  student  he  went  out  only  once  to  supper  and  then  was 
"frightened  to  death."  And  yet  in  the  face  of  his  diffidence 
he  made  strong  friendships  and  was  what  would  now  be 

1  English  Lands,  Letters,  and  Kings,  3.303. 
*  American  Lands  and  Letters,  2.52-53. 

55 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

called  popular.  He  was  one  of  the  most  influential  members 
of  the  Linonian  Literary  Society,  an  Alpha  Delta  Phi,  a  Chi 
Delta  Theta,  and  a  member  of  Skull  and  Bones. 

In  February  1882,  a  college-mate  wrote  Mr.  Mitchell  a 
letter  which  throws  light  for  us  upon  the  distant  college  days 
and  enables  us  to  see  and  hear  young  Donald,  the  eager 
representative  of  his  society,  speaking  in  behalf  of  Linonian: 

It  was  the  first  or  second  Saturday  of  our  fall  term  [1840],  or  it 
may  have  been  Wednesday,  in  the  afternoon  [wrote  Mr.  J.  W. 
Waterman],  when  all  newcomers  were  summoned  to  hear  a  "state 
ment  of  facts."  ...  I  went  to  hear  the  man  who  spoke  for  the 
Linonians.  There  was  a  crowd  on  Chapel  Street  opposite  South 
College.  The  orator  had  just  commenced.  He  was  a  very  grace 
ful  young  man  with  a  bright  eye  and  brown,  wavy  hair  and  pale 
student  face;  he  had  a  very  winning  voice  and  excellent  elocution. 
I  was  completely  carried  away  by  him.  I  thought  I  had  never 
heard  oratory  before;  and  as  the  speaker  had  no  notes,  I  took  it  for 
granted  that  he  was  speaking  extemporaneously,  and  I  wondered 
not  so  much  at  the  rare  gift  of  speech  of  the  man,  as  I  did  at  the 
supposed  demonstration  that  three  years  of  college  cultivation  was 
sure  to  develop  such  consummate  flowers;  and  poor  little  fifteen 
year  old  freshman  that  I  was,  I  had  no  doubt  that  in  the  far  away 
future  of  my  senior  year,  I  too  would  be  an  orator,  and  be  able  to 
roll  off  the  periods  in  the  same  graceful  and  captivating  way. 

As  I  have  said,  Donald's  chief  interests  in  college  were 
literary,  centring  particularly  upon  oratory  and  composi 
tion.  To  both  he  applied  himself  diligently.  His  contribu 
tions  as  a  junior  to  the  Yale  Literary  Magazine  probably  won 
him  election  to  the  1841  Board  of  Editors  and  gave  him  op 
portunity  to  indulge  in  a  way  highly  attractive  to  him  his 
fondness  for  original  composition.  To  the  semicentennial 
number  of  the  Magazine  (February  1886)  he  contributed  an 

56 


From  a  sketch  made  in  New  Haven,  Connecticut,  in  1839. 


THE    YALE    DAYS 

article  on  "Old  Magazine  Days  at  Yale"  from  which  we  may 
quote: 

The  book-store  of  Herrick  &  Noyes  .  .  .  on  Chapel  Street  used 
to  be  a  great  loitering  place  for  book-loving  students  in  our  "fresh" 
days,  forty  odd  years  ago;  and  I  think  it  was  there — sometime  in 
the  late  autumn  of  1837 — that  I  came  upon  first  sight  of  that  Yale 
magazine,  from  whose  brown  covers  the  old  gentleman  in  big  cuffs 
and  with  big  flaps  to  his  waistcoat,  has  been  looking  out  benignly 
upon  the  world  for  fifty  years.  There  was  a  respect  for  such  lit 
erary  monuments  in  those  early  and  innocent  times  before  as  yet 
the  virus  of  athletics  had  infected  the  college  mind,  and  when  we 
looked  with  a  becoming  awe  upon  the  golden  spatula  of  <I>BK  and 
the  tri-cornered  Delta  of  the  "fine  writers."  .  .  .  From  the  edi 
tors  of  1840 — we  of  1841 — received  the  good  will  of  the  concern  on 
a  certain  festive  occasion  at  the  Moriarty's  of  that  day,  abundant 
manuscripts  and — unless  I  mistake — a  bouncing  debt.  This,  how 
ever,  did  not  forbid  a  flow  of  humor  at  the  festivities  hinted  at, 
and  a  limited  popping  of  corks — small  beer,  doubtless.  I  am  con 
fident  that  mineral  waters  had  not  then  come  into  vogue. 

Of  my  associates  upon  the  Board  only  two,  I  think,  are  now 
[1886]  living:  one,  the  venerable  Dr.  Yarnall  of  West  Philadelphia, 
beyond  us  in  years  and  dignity — then,  as  now — and  relieving  the 
quiet  cares  of  his  Rectory  ...  by  flashes  of  his  early  but  always 
good-humored  sarcasm.  Another  was  the  scholarly  Professor 
Emerson,  with  eyes  of  poetic  outlook,  living  many  a  year  now  in 
a  quiet  collegiate  home  of  the  West  (Beloit)  and  enjoying — as  of 
old — the  classic  odors  that  filter  through  the  pages  of  Homer  and 
of  ^Eschylus. 

I  cannot  leave  these  old  magazine  days  and  memories  without 
some  notice  of  that  most  excellent — but  sometimes  irascible — old 
gentleman  who  was  in  those  days,  printer  to  the  college;  I  mean 
Benjamin  Hamlen.  His  printing  office  (and  ours)  was  upon  some 
top  floor  reached  by  narrow  halls  and  stairs  ...  a  roomy  office 

57 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

with  hand-presses  only,  creaking  and  groaning  at  their  work,  and 
a  pleasant  outlook  over  the  Green,  from  the  little  table  where  we 
corrected  proofs.  And  the  master  printer,  who  presided  over  cases 
and  presses,  is  as  plainly  before  me  as  if  I  saw  him  only  yesterday. 
Tall,  gaunt,  gray-eyed,  with  a  goodly  Roman  nose,  hair  straying 
and  scattery,  with  color  of  age  upon  it,  face  reddened  (but  rather, 
I  think,  by  the  storms  of  life  and  the  office,  than  by  any  alcoholic 
provocatives),  having  his  own  imperial  notions  about  punctuation, 
a  king  of  orthography,  indulging  on  occasions  in  high  theologic  dis 
course,  watchful  of  all  the  galleys,  and  at  a  big  blunder  of  a  com 
positor,  breaking  out  somewhiles  into  discourse  that  was  not  theo 
logic — this  was  our  printer  ! 

He  lived  in  a  small  white  house  .  .  .  between  the  Art  School 
and  the  Library.  From  his  door  there  I  used  to  see  him  from  my 
window  .  .  .  striding  forth  with  his  scant  camlet  cloak  close 
wrapped  about  him,  his  locks  straying  out  from  under  his  well- 
worn  silken  beaver — braving  all  weathers;  perhaps  in  the  flurries 
of  November  carrying  a  bead  of  dew  at  the  tip  of  his  Roman  nose; 
always  eager  and  earnest,  and  bound  straight  to  the  line  of  his  daily 
duties. 

I  do  not  know  when  he  died,  or  where  he  is  buried;  but  for  me 
his  memorial  is  severely  simple  and  is  Latinized — upon  the  initial 
page  of  the  old  Triennial  [catalogue]: 

B.   L.   HAMLEN,   TYPOGRAPHO. 

In  a  little,  green,  leather-bound  volume,  bearing  upon  its 
title-page  in  his  own  handwriting  the  legend  "A  Memorial  of 
College  Follies,"  Mr.  Mitchell  has  preserved  his  contribu 
tions  to  the  Yale  Literary  Magazine.  The  papers  total  about 
1 60  pages  of  solid  print — no  inconsiderable  output  for  a  stu 
dent  busy  with  the  regular  work  of  the  curriculum.  Among 
them  are  a  series  of  "  Sketches  of  Real  Life,  or  Scraps  from 
a  Doctor's  Diary,"  written,  according  to  his  own  note,  "as 
will  sufficiently  appear,  in  imitation  of  Dr.  Warren's  cele- 

58 


THE    YALE    DAYS 

brated  Diary  of  a  Physician."  l  The  note  goes  on  to  inform 
us  that  the  admiration  which  the  young  writer  felt  for  "the 
graphic  force  and  mastering  pathos  of  those  Passages  induced 
the  attempt."  Then  there  is  a  sketch,  "The  Heir  of  Lich- 
stenstein  [sic]"  the  name  undoubtedly  suggested  by  Wil- 
helm  Hauff's  Lichtenstein ;  a  series  of  papers  entitled  "The 
Mirror,  or  Tablets  of  an  Idle  Man;"  essays  on  James  Feni- 
more  Cooper,  Bulwer,  and  Sir  Walter  Scott;  a  comparison  of 
Burke  and  Newton;  and  a  few  pages  of  hurried  "Thoughts 
upon  Novel  Reading,"  concerning  which  another  note  in 
forms  us  that  it  was  "written  in  the  library  room  of  the 
Brothers  in  Unity  and  furnished  to  the  printer  without  re 
vision." 

Donald's  work  on  the  Magazine,  thoroughly  congenial  to 
himself  and  undoubtedly  one  of  the  most  valuable  features  of 
his  college  course,  was  not  permitted  to  proceed  without 
question.  His  guardian,  Gen.  Williams,  a  business  man  of 
practical  turn  and  without  particular  aesthetic  or  literary 
taste,  took  the  aspiring  author  severely  to  task.  The  letters 
written  by  Gen.  Williams  have  not  been  found;  fortunately, 
however,  two  of  Donald's  exist.  Reading  these,  we  may  not 
only  enjoy  Donald's  spirited  defense  of  his  pursuits,  but  also 
form  a  good  notion  of  his  reaction  to  college  life  and  its  rela 
tions  to  the  larger  life  beyond  the  confines  of  the  Yale  cam 
pus.  Very  few  of  his  college  letters  remain;  it  is  indeed  fortu 
nate  that  two  of  such  length  and  content  are  available: 

Yours  of  the  3Oth  [he  writes  from  New  London,  Conn.,  under 
date  of  Sabbath  eve,  May  3d,  1840]  at  the  hands  of  Elizabeth  was 
duly  received,  and  I  feel  happy  in  replying  to  many  suggestions 
which  you  have  thrown  out  in  connection  with,  or  rather  as  corol- 

1  Passages  from  the  Diary  of  a  Late  Physician.     By  Dr.  Samuel  Warren.     Pub 
lished  originally  in  Blackwood's  Magazine,  1832-1837. 

59 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

laries  to,  the  observations  upon  expenditures; — happy,  because 
they  are  such  suggestions  as  favor  the  introduction  of  a  defence  on 
my  part  (otherwise  uncalled  for)  of  the  course  in  general  pursued 
by  me  since  entering  college.  The  subject  of  expenses  I  briefly  dis 
miss  with  a  corroboration  of  the  opinion  expressed  in  my  last,  to 
reduce  as  far  as  possible  my  outlay.  In  introducing  your  homily 
upon  Education,  you  seem  to  have  labored  under  some  mistake  in 
mentioning  " liability  to  expense  in  writing  for  publication."  I 
supposed  I  had  made  you  fully  acquainted  with  the  harmlessness 
of  the  conduct  of  the  Magazine  in  that  point  of  view,  in  assuring 
you  that  no  number  of  the  Magazine  was  printed  until  sufficient 
monies  were  received  to  publish  the  entire  volume.  But  appar 
ently  I  have  been  mistaken;  from  what  cause  I  am  ignorant — 
surely  not  from  my  own  misrepresentation. 

You  illustrate  an  injudicious  attention  to  the  Magazine  by  re 
curring  to  the  self-interested  accountant,  and  to  the  indigent  stu 
dent;  and  conclude  by  enquiring,  'does  it  complete  the  education 
of  either  so  well  ? '  You  have  given,  if  you  recollect,  the  illustra 
tion  without  afu/!  application.  I  am  therefore  in  ignorance  of  the 
exact  nature  of  your  views.  (Think  me  not  pedantic,  I  beg;  you 
have  doubtless  omitted  something  it  had  been  your  intention  to 
insert.)  Nevertheless,  from  the  general  tenor  of  your  remarks,  I 
imagine  you  are  disposed  to  object  to  my  application  to  writing, 
and  to  elicit  (with  all  deference)  a  defence  on  my  part,  hinted  at 
in  the  opening  of  this  sheet. 

You  observe  a  very  fantastic  and  unnatural  distinction  between 
the  real  ends  of  education  and  the  pursuits  of  literature  in  writing. 
Now  whatever  may  be  the  immediate  results  of  the  recitations  or 
lessons,  nothing  can,  or  need  be  plainer  than  that  the  great  and 
only  aim  of  all  collegiate  education  is  to  acquire  a  force  of  intellect 
adequate  to  command  the  great  mind  of  society  and  the  world,  in 
speaking  and  writing.  Writing,  then,  is  no  more  diverse  from  the 
end  of  a  collegiate  course  than  the  conduct  of  that  accountant 
who,  while  in  the  employ  of  others,  invests  from  time  to  time  some 

60 


THE    YALE    DAYS 

capital  of  his  own,  that  he  may  combine  an  exercise  of  the  reflecting 
powers  of  his  mind  (sagacity  and  discretion)  with  the  mechanical 
labor  necessarily  requisite;  it  is  no  more  irrelevant  to  the  great  goal 
of  a  scholar's  ambition  than  the  labor  of  that  youthful  rustic  who, 
while  bracing  his  muscles  with  the  humbler  organs  of  husbandry, 
at  times  places  his  hand  to  the  plow  and  upturns  that  sod  which  in 
future  years  is  to  warm  and  nurture  the  germ  of  his  worldly  wealth  ! 
Indeed,  so  important,  so  entire  an  aim  is  the  power  to  write  and  to 
speak  well  that  our  rhetorical  professor  has  again  and  again  im 
pressed  it  upon  us  in  such  terms  as  these:  "The  text-books  are 
worth  nothing  to  you  in  comparison  with  the  great  ends  of  a  col 
legiate  discipline — power  of  ruling  mind; — they  are  the  mere  alpha 
bet  to  form  the  language."  So  much  for  the  distinction  you  have 
seen  fit  to  make  between  education  and  an  application  to  writing. 
I  have  dwelt  upon  it  in  showing  the  fallacy  of  any  contradistinc 
tion,  because  it  would  be  exceedingly  galling  to  my  feelings  to 
realize  that  I  had  chosen  the  part  of  uneducated  mind. 

Of  what  utility,  you  then  ask,  are  the  text-books  and  an  unre 
mitting  attention  ?  I  answer — waiving  the  consideration  that  even 
now  ^rd  of  all  regular  college  exercises  are  confined  exclusively 
and  fully  to  writing  and  speaking  and  the  rules  of  that  rhetoric 
which  you  are  disposed  to  undervalue — I  answer  it  is  to  befit  the 
mind  for  more  vigorous  attainment  in  after  life;  but  it  effects  this 
not  through  a  neglect  of  the  pursuit  in  college — which  would  be 
but  learning  the  rules  of  a  dance  without  ever  following  its  mazes — 
but  in  constant  and  simultaneous  exercise  of  all  those  faculties 
which  present  knowledge  in  the  form  of  speech  and  writing.  Again 
you  ask,  is  not  the  exercise  prescribed  by  the  regular  college  au 
thorities  sufficient  for  practical  application?  I  answer — it  is  as 
much  as  they  dared  expect,  though  not  so  much  as  they  could 
wish;  and  let  me  check  your  triumph  over  my  exposition  of  their 
views,  in  observing  that  nearly  all  the  writings  in  the  periodical  re 
ferred  to,  are  nothing  more  than  the  regular  college  exercises  re 
vised  and  polished  for  the  acceptance  of  the  reading  public;  and 

61 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

moreover  that  the  Yale  Literary  Magazine  is  taken  and  supported 
zealously  by  almost  every  member  of  the  faculty,  they  believing  it 
no  less  honorable  to  the  literary  character  of  the  institution  than 
improving  to  the  minds  of  its  conductors.  Indeed,  it  is  the  foster 
child  of  their  nurture,  which  we  humbly  trust  shames  not  its  par 
entage  !  It  excites  a  noble  sentiment  of  emulation  throughout 
college — is  a  monthly  report  to  friends  of  comparative  attain 
ments — calls  for  vigorous  action  in  the  walks  precedent  to  the 
stormy  strife  upon  the  great  arena  of  life — in  fine,  it  constitutes  the 
columns  and  the  entablature  to  the  great  temple  of  collegiate  pur 
suits — not  indispensable  to  its  permanence,  but  essential  to  its 
symmetry,  its  majesty,  and  its  perfection ! 

Would,  then,  the  man  at  thirty  be  the  gainer  from  attention  to 
such  an  object?  Would  the  eagle  pierce  more  buoyantly  the  em 
pyrean  for  trying  its  strength  while  yet  a  nursling  of  the  eyrie  ?  or 
can  he  hope  for  strength  to  soar  in  face  of  heaven  by  merely  gorging 
his  carrion  prey?  Think  not,  then,  so  objectionably  of  a  course 
both  practical  and  calculated  to  discipline  for  future  exercise. 
But  do  you  imagine  a  necessary  neglect  of  other  branches  ?  Noth 
ing  is  farther  from  the  truth,  so  unreal  that  it  is  a  general  truth, 
that  he  who  is  most  stored  with  knowledge  there  acquired  is  most 
profuse  in  its  exhibition,  that  he  who  is  best  disciplined  is  most 
active  in  presenting  thought. 

Thus  far  in  answer  to  your  suggestions,  and  I  conclude,  trust 
ing  that  you  will  read  this  letter  divesting  yourself  of  prejudice  and 
a  remembrance  of  my  youthful  prejudices; — trusting  that  you  will 
weigh  the  ideas  suggested  not  as  my  own  ardent,  passionate  excla 
mations,  but  as  statements  to  be  submitted  to  the  sober  test  of  rea 
son;  and  if  they  be  maimed  by  a  shaft  from  her  quiver,  I  yield  with 
due  submission. 

I  take  this  opportunity  [he  continues  in  a  letter  dated  July  ijth, 
1840,  written  from  New  Haven]  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  a 
check  in  the  Merchants  Bank  of  New  York  for  $100; — also  I  thus 

62 


THE    YALE    DAYS 

soon  would  reply  to  yours  of  the  loth  inst.,  inasmuch  as  I  was  con 
siderably  disturbed  by  its  contents.  I  think,  without  conceit,  that 
few  are  more  disposed  than  myself  at  my  age  to  receive  and  to  be 
guided  by  the  advice  of  friends;  and  let  me  assure  you  that  yours 
is  treasured  in  a  grateful  mind.  But  at  the  same  time  I  think  that 
you  are  somewhat  deceived  relative  to  my  actual  regard  for  matters 
of  a  trifling,  /.  e.y  purely  literary  nature,  and  that  you  are  mistaken 
relative  to  the  time  expended  by  me  upon  the  magazine  in  ques 
tion — in  short,  that  your  fears  are  in  a  measure  groundless.  For 
instance,  the  very  article  which  has  suggested  to  you,  perhaps,  the 
kind  admonitions  offered  in  your  letter  was  written  for  a  literary 
exercise  which  I  engaged  in  in  common  with  a  great  portion  of  the 
class.  Classical  studies  such  as  I  presume  you  refer  to — languages, 
etc. — are  now  completed  and  our  attention  is  directed  at  present 
to  history,  astronomy,  and  some  principles  of  natural  philosophy, 
all  of  which  are  to  be  succeeded  by  those  pursuits  calculated  to 
foster  and  sustain  a  power  of  coping  with  thought  and  language ; 
viz.,  logic,  rhetoric,  natural  theology,  and  mental  philosophy,  all 
of  which  I  purpose  to  pursue  with  zeal  and  vigor. 

Relative  to  the  acquirement  of  practical  knowledge,  it  must  be 
considered  that  college  is  the  last  place  in  the  world  to  attain  this 
kind  of  knowledge  amid  the  pursuit  of  mathematical  demonstra 
tions  and  the  pleas  of  Demosthenes  300  years  before  Christ;  yet  I 
am  free  to  assert  with  confidence  that  there  are  not  four  persons  in 
my  own  class  whom  I  would  be  willing  to  acknowledge  my  supe 
riors  in  any  practical  knowledge  whatever,  owing  chiefly  to  the 
peculiar  circumstances  into  which  I  have  been  thrown.  Take,  for 
instance,  the  single  matter  of  accounts:  slight  as  my  knowledge  is, 
I  doubt  not  I  better  understand  its  theory  and  practice  than  al 
most  any  individual  with  whom  I  am  associated  here.  I  am  throw 
ing  myself  open  to  a  serious  charge  of  egotism,  I  see;  but  neverthe 
less,  let  your  kind  confidence  be  my  apology.  I  am  not  insensible, 
I  assure  you,  to  the  necessity  of  practical  knowledge  and  (if  I  may 
so  speak)  to  its  steady,  vigorous,  full  application. 

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THE   LIFE    OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

I  am  not  in  love  with  literature — not  rapt  into  a  morbid  enthu 
siasm  for  mere  books  and  writing;  but  pursue  its  more  essential 
branches  as  a  means  and  not  as  an  end — as  a  means  of  disciplin 
ing  my  mind  for  vigorous  thought — as  a  means  of  acquiring 
knowledge — as  a  means  of  ability  to  render  that  knowledge  effec 
tive  in  its  highest  capabilities;  and  when  a  profession  is  before  me, 
it  is  to  that  and  that  alone  I  mean  to  concentrate  my  energies — • 
if  health  favor — with  untiring  application,  and  if  then,  despite  my 
efforts,  I  shame  my  friends  from  lack  of  natural  endowment,  be  it 
so,  for  God  "hath  made  us,  and  not  we  ourselves  !" 

Meanwhile,  be  assured  your  advice  and  your  wishes  in  all  my 
schemes  will  be  kept  steadily  in  view;  indeed  I  am  extremely  sen 
sitive  to  the  slightest  censure,  and  hence  by  its  rankling  it  is  al 
ways  sure  to  effect  some  good. 

Dropping  the  more  severe  manner  of  an  explanation,  permit 
[me]  to  solicit  your  advice  upon  my  leave  a  year  hence.  Law,  I 
think  upon  the  whole  best  suited  to  my  capacities,  and  my  only 
fear  is  that  my  strength  and  health  would  not  sustain  me  under 
its  excessive  labor.  Now,  would  a  resMence  on  a  farm  for  a  year 
or  more  after  leaving  college  consort  with  your  views  of  attaining 
practical  usefulness?  It  would  give  a  stock  of  health  and  some 
leisure  for  keeping  alive  my  acquaintance  with  books. 

Apposite  to  your  remarks  is  a  fact  related  of  Edmund  Burke, 
the  greatest  of  English  statesmen.  He  spent  his  time  in  youth  in 
a  haphazard  manner,  pursuing  the  bent  of  his  own  inclinations; 
"but,"  says  his  historian,  "let  none  do  likewise  unless  they  are 
first  convinced  that  they  possess  the  genius  of  Burke." 

...  I  have  some  thoughts  of  soliciting  a  boarding  place  at 
Salem  with  Mr.  Goddard  for  the  coming  vacation.  .  .  . 

After  almost  four  years  of  such  really  strenuous  work  as 
the  old  Yale  curriculum  occasioned,  and  two  years  of  ener 
getic  and  sometimes  feverishly  hurried  writing  for  the  Maga 
zine,  Donald  must  have  come  to  the  delights  of  the  senior 


THE    YALE    DAYS 

vacation  with  feelings  of  relief  and  deep  satisfaction.    The 
flavors  of  it  he  treasured  as  among  his  richest  possessions: 

That  old  six  weeks'  vacation  for  the  seniors  which  once  inter 
vened  between  what  was  called  class  day  and  commencement  was 
a  glorious  festal  time  for  those  who  had  finished  their  courses  un 
conditioned  .  .  .  six  weeks  of  triumphant  idleness  and  dignity 
[he  wrote  in  1895].  To  have  the  freedom  of  those  august  courts  of 
learning  (the  Atheneum  and  Lyceum)  and  no  tingling  horror  of 
the  college  bell !  The  sophomores  regarded  us  seniors  with  a  new 
admiration,  and  freshmen  were  transfixed  with  awe  as  we  strode 
past  them  on  the  campus.  Then  came,  too,  the  victorious  forays 
in  companies  of  two  or  five  to  Morris  Cove  or  Savin  Rock  (whose 
single,  great  shambling  hostelry  then  flanked  the  cliff),  or  to  Guil- 
ford  Point,  astonishing  the  villagers  on  the  way  and  winning  the 
smiles  of  those  alert  young  women  who  already  scented  "Com 
mencement"  in  the  air. 

The  privileges  of  that  last,  long  vacation  gave  us  also  the  free 
dom  of  the  great  Tontine  tavern,  which  then  dominated  with  its 
vast  hulk,  the  whole  eastern  side  of  the  Green;  and  we  strode  up 
and  down  its  majestic  corridors — fearless  of  prying  monitors  or 
tutors — and  snuffing  with  independent  air  the  odors  of  those  fra 
grant  stews  which  ...  in  the  far  away  days  I  speak  of  mingled 
regalingly  with  the  odors  of  stables  and  of  blooming  house-gardens 
that  stretched  all  the  way  down  to  the  banks  of  the  canal. 

At  last  came  the  day  of  graduation,  August  i8th,  1841. 
It  is  worth  our  while  to  look  at  one  of  those  long-gone  com 
mencements  through  Mr.  Mitchell's  eyes: 

All  the  ministers  and  the  deacons  in  the  near  towns  put  on 
clean  collars  and  their  best  toggery  for  commencement  day.  The 
old  railing  about  the  Green  was  a  hitching  place  for  half  its  circuit. 
Old  ladies  living  along  the  out-of-town  roads  plotted  for  the  return 
of  their  best  bombazines  from  the  mantua  makers  for  the  com- 

65 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

mencement  scrimmage.  The  seniors  coming  back  from  that  "lark" 
of  a  six  weeks'  vacation  .  .  .  sun-browned  and  chirrupy,  beamed 
with  a  contagious  joyousness;  the  aunts  and  cousins  and  sweet 
hearts  of  these  last,  and  of  the  new  come  "fresh,"  flooded  all  the 
walks  with  flashing  cambrics  and  cheeriness.  Even  before  the 
great  procession — headed  by  the  sheriff  of  the  county,  and  with 
constables  for  marshals — had  meandered  its  way  down  from  the 
Lyceum  doorstep  to  the  front  of  Centre  Church,  the  galleries  were 
packed — the  windows  all  open,  showing  piles  of  muslin  and  flutter 
ing  fans,  while  the  whole  interior  air  of  the  temple  was  heavy  with 
the  incense  of  pinks,  fennel,  new  prunella  shoes,  and  late  summer 
flowers. 

The  last  year's  freshmen  (we  had  begun  even  then  to  call  our 
selves  sophomores)  following  immediately  after  the  constabulary, 
and  dividing  ranks  at  the  door,  posted  their  strongest  men — the 
class  "bully"  foremost — to  hold  back  the  surging  crowd,  which, 
when  the  dignitaries — governors,  senators,  doctors — had  wriggled 
through  and  were  installed  upon  their  lifted  rostrum,  flowed  in 
with  a  swift  tide  and  made  the  whole  church  a  sea  of  heads. 

Among  the  dignitaries  in  the  times  I  best  remember,  the  curi 
ous  might  have^pointed  out  the  tall,  spare  figure  of  Gov.  Ellsworth, 
perhaps  flanked  by  ex-Gov.  Edwards,  and  Judge  Daggett,  serene 
in  his  top  boots,  and  the  antique  head  of  Dr.  Chapin,  and  Senator 
Smith,  or  mayhap  Gen.  Kimberly  (who  loved  his  own  chafing  dish 
at  the  Tontine  tables),  and  the  Puritan  dignity  of  Rev.  Noah 
Porter  [father  of  the  Noah  who  became  president  of  Yale],  and,  not 
least  regarded  by  reason  of  the  auctoritatem  meam  with  which  he 
was  invested,  the  kindly  President  of  the  College,  Dr.  Day.  He 
was  not  a  man  showing  at  his  best  in  fetes  .  .  .  nor  yet  in  his 
Algebra,  or  Treatise  on  the  Will;  but  in  the  quiet  of  his  own  North 
College  room,  when  he  beamed  a  benignant  pardon  upon  some 
offending  student. 

Orations,  dissertations,  "sacred  music,"  boomed  in  the  pent 
air  where  fans  were  all  a-flutter.  Possibly  some  dramatic  fragment 

66 


THE    YALE    DAYS 

like  Salathiel)  by  John  Brocklesby,  varied  the  monotone  in  black. 
In  the  "sacred  music"  I  think  there  may  have  been  a  faint  "flute" 
note — of  violins,  I  am  not  so  sure — but  the  bass-viol  was,  I  think, 
wrested  from  the  grip  of  Satan  at  an  earlier  period  than  its  smaller 
and  saucier  sister.  There  was  an  interlude  at  noon,  and  a  breaking 
of  cold  meats,  at  which  all  the  hungry  dominies  of  near  towns  re 
galed  themselves. 

Then  came  again — as  the  sun  turned  its  sky  journey  and  smote 
hotly  from  the  west — a  new  booming  of  the  music,  a  livelier  flut 
tering  of  the  fans,  and  a  new  threshing  of  such  old  truisms  as 
"Truth  is  mighty  and  will  prevail !"  The  dignitaries  wax  hot  and 
weary,  and  are  more  than  ready  for  the  final  benediction  which 
follows  upon  the  distribution  of  the  honors  ad  primum  gradum. 
Then  a  last  burst  of  irregular  music  swells  again;  the  fans  cease 
their  flutter;  the  crowd  eddies  into  slow,  murmurous  currents  that 
flow  down  the  aisles  and  out  into  the  breezy  air  of  ...  afternoon. 

In  the  face  of  all  handicaps  the  young  man  had  acquitted 
himself  well  during  the  four  years,  and  was  chosen  by  his 
class  to  deliver  the  valedictory  oration.  The  subject  of  his 
address  was  The  Dignity  of  Learning.  When  he  arose  to 
pronounce  the  oration,  July  yth,  1841,  he  was  almost  too 
ill  and  weak  to  stand.  His  pale,  handsome  face  was  never 
forgotten  by  those  who  were  present,  nor  the  affecting  man 
ner  with  which  he  turned  to  the  white-haired  President  Day 
to  bid  farewell  to  him  and  to  the  faculty.  The  disease  which 
had  already  scourged  his  family  had  laid  strong  hold  upon 
Donald. 

The  Dignity  of  Learning^  an  oration  written  and  pro 
nounced  by  a  young  man  just  turned  of  nineteen,  may  well 
be  read  and  pondered  by  American  college  seniors  of  the 
present.  It  bears  witness  to  the  fact  that  Donald  had  read 
widely,  had  assimilated  his  reading,  had  formulated  definite 

6? 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

convictions  upon  important  questions,  and  acquired  the 
ability  to  express  those  convictions  in  clear  and  compelling 
English.  The  substance  of  the  oration  is  worthy  of  preser 
vation  here: 

What  is  the  worth  of  learning  [he  asks  at  the  outset],  that  we 
have  spent  the  flower  of  our  life  in  its  acquisition?  Wherein  con 
sists  its  true  dignity,  and  how  shall  it  be  best  maintained  in  the 
field  now  in  reality  before  us?  .  .  .  [Its  true  dignity  consists]  in 
an  independence  of  all  save  truth;  in  a  consistency  regulated  only 
by  the  same  severe  standard,  and  in  a  strict  subordination  to  mo 
rality.  When  learning  concedes  a  dependence  on  any  other  sover 
eign  than  truth,  it  is  no  longer  learning,  but  only  a  gross  debase 
ment  of  its  title.  .  .  .  The  dignity  of  American  learning  must  rest 
in  a  great  measure  on  its  restraint  and  modification  of  public  senti 
ment.  .  .  .  Public  opinion  in  America  needs  the  constant,  effi 
cient,  renovating  action  of  learning,  in  view  of  her  political  insti 
tutions.  .  .  . 

Democrat  is  becoming  the  by- word  for  political  distinction; 
and  he  who  dares  to  speak  in  disrespect  of  the  Democracy  is  a 
libeler  of  his  country's  fame.  But  while  I  yet  stand  within  this 
sacred  nursery  of  truth,  I  dare  to  say,  and  say  proudly  too,  that 
our  government  is  not  a  democracy.  The  representative  system 
is  the  glory  of  our  institutions; — a  system  which,  while  it  designates 
our  legislators  as  the  instruments  of  power,  marks  them  out  none 
the  less  surely  as  the  men  possessed  of  that  intellectual  ability 
which  can  control  the  functions  of  a  great  government.  And  it  is 
the  submission  of  the  people  to  the  wisdom  of  their  superiors 
that  constitutes  the  grand  conservative  principle  of  our  institu 
tions;  and  the  bare  fact  that  such  submission  is  voluntary  consti 
tutes  our  freedom.  ...  It  is  by  no  means  too  much  to  say  that 
educated  mind  is  far  from  holding  to  itself  in  our  country  that 
independence  and  firmness  of  which  as  the  guardian  of  truth  it 
should  be  proud.  It  is  yielding  too  much  to  the  bias  of  popular 

68 


THE    YALE    DAYS 

sentiment,  nor  dares  resist  manfully  the  sweep  of  public  opin 
ion.  .  .  .  Instead  of  guiding  sentiment  by  the  force  of  a  truth- 
seeking  mind,  learning  too  often  waits  the  flow  of  opinion  and 
passes  undisturbed  down  its  lulling  tides;  not  from  scorn  of  what 
the  truth  may  be,  but  from  greater  love  of  public  regard;  and  as  it 
stoops  to  popular  caprice,  it  must  like  Galileo  rise  with  a  whispered 
condemnation  of  the  act.  It  is  no  less  lamentable  than  true  that 
popularity  is  the  general  ground  of  eminence  in  America. 

.  .  .  The  dignity  of  learning  is  not  here  [in  America]  to  be 
maintained  by  newness,  or  by  strange  conceits,  but  by  a  correct 
and  chastened  guidance,  by  more  reverence  and  deeper  study  of 
what  has  gone  before,  rather  than  [by]  hasty  attempts  to  emulate. 
The  body  of  our  letters  for  a  long  time  to  come  cannot  differ  mate-  . 
rially  from  those  of  Britain.  The  similarity  of  our  manners  and 
language  forbid.  Characters  and  scenes  can  never  make  a  differ 
ence  while  principles  and  actions  are  the  same.  .  .  .  The  nice 
distinctions  in  our  political  and  social  organizations  must  remain 
long  unchronicled  in  characteristic  verse.  In  truth,  the  only  real 
nationality  of  American  literature  is,  I  believe,  to  consist  only  in 
its  superiority  to  every  other;  superiority  not  so  much  in  the  con 
ventionalities  of  form  and  the  polish  of  numbers,  as  in  its  grasp 
and  subordination  to  morality.  ...  It  must  sustain  its  dignity 
only  in  laying  aright  the  basis  of  a  literature  of  power  and  purity. 
I  say  in  laying  the  basis,  for  we  are  not  ready  for  the  superstructure 
of  elegant  letters.  .  .  .  The  pride  and  the  strength  of  America — 
her  people — can  by  no  means  yet  in  the  mass  appreciate  the  ele 
gancies  of  letters.  .  .  .  Until,  then,  the  mass  of  society  shall 
have  chastened  their  tastes  .  .  .  where  can  we  look  for  the  sup 
port  of  a  native  elegant  literature?  And  it  has  been  the  failure  of 
what  constitutes  the  floating  literary  capital  of  our  day  that  it  has 
been  established  on  no  learning  whatever  and  is  of  superficial  and 
precocious  growth.  Classic  learning  must  modify  and  should 
chastise  American  letters.  It  is  a  wise  and  a  holy  principle  of  our 
nature — that  cheerful  sufferance  of  the  wisdom  of  the  past  which 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

garners  the  treasures  of  its  thought.  Did  we  live  in  Homer's  day 
we  might  attune  our  unlearned  faculties  to  the  habit  of  a  sounding 
song;  but  like  Virgil  we  must  know  somewhat  before  we  tell  the 
story  of  a  Trojan  wanderer,  or  rival  his  agricultural  verse.  And 
he  who  without  learning,  writes  with  mercenary  views  to  supply 
the  diseased  appetites  of  myriads,  beggars  our  growing  literature. 
And  we  who  have  for  years  been  professedly  arraying  ourselves 
in  an  Attic  garb,  let  us  not  forsake  the  Blue-eyed  Queen  of  letters 
to  lay  our  offerings  at  the  feet  of  the  Ephesian  Diana. 

.  .  .  [I]n  its  connection  with  literature,  it  is  essential  to  the 
dignity  of  American  learning  that  its  efforts  be  subordinated  to 
true  morality.  .  .  .  When  intellect  becomes  a  pander  to  sensual 
appetite,  the  order  of  our  system  is  subverted  and  man  brutal 
izes  every  faculty  of  a  nobler  nature.  Learning,  so  far  from  the 
maintenance  of  its  true  elevation,  debases  itself,  and  ignorance  may 
triumph  in  the  possession  of  nobler  motives  and  higher  hopes.  In 
anticipating  the  progress  of  correct  principle,  and  the  subordina 
tion  of  our  letters,  as  a  ground  of  their  excellence,  to  morality,  a 
question  arises  of  speculative  curiosity  no  less  than  [of]  real  inter 
est — whether  an  elegant  literature  can  be  so  inwoven  with  mo 
rality  as  to  make  it  no  less  charming  to  a  refined  intellect  than  to 
a  pure  heart?  .  .  .  And  if  this  union  between  all  that  is  pure  in 
morals  and  all  that  is  elegant  in  letters  is  ever  to  take  place, 
where  is  the  land  and  where  the  people  who  are  to  aid  in  the  con 
summation  before  our  own?  .  .  .  And  what  purpose  in  the  world 
more  noble,  than  that  learning  should  seek  a  higher  dignity  by  a 
more  intimate  alliance  with  morality,  and  the  blessed  union  of 
both  exalt  our  country  and  consummate  the  worth  of  our  Amer 
ican  character?  .  .  . 

But  do  not  suppose  that  in  my  assertion  of  the  dignity  of  learn 
ing,  and  its  elevating  pursuits,  I  overlook  its  bearings  upon  or  con 
nection  with  common  mind.  .  .  .  The  farmer  has  not  fed  us, 
the  mechanic  has  not  sheltered,  in  the  expectancy  of  receiving 
nothing  at  our  hands.  And  as  we  sever  the  bond  of  union  to-day, 

70 


THE    YALE    DAYS 

it  is  this  sentiment  in  furtherance  of  which  I  would  utter  my 
heartiest  God  speed  you — live  for  your  fellow-men.  .  .  . 

Permit  me  to  urge  upon  you  farther,  in  concluding,  the  benefit 
of  carrying  somewhat  of  the  warmth  of  early  feeling  into  the  active 
duties  of  life.  Let  a  young  heart  ever  burn  in  your  breasts;  it 
cannot  mislead  a  mature  mind.  .  .  . 

Yale  left  upon  Mr.  Mitchell  a  strong  impress.  Knowing 
well  both  the  strength  and  the  weaknesses  of  his  alma  mater, 
he  came  to  a  right  appraisal  of  both,  and  cherished  an  intelli 
gent  yet  unwavering  love  for  the  institution.  Readers  of 
his  American  Lands  and  Letters  cannot  have  failed  to  notice 
how  frequently  the  name  of  Yale  occurs  therein;  how  often, 
in  truth,  the  author  goes  out  of  his  way  to  make  mention  of 
Yale.  It  is  probably  true  that  he  was  never  entirely  satisfied 
with  Yale's  achievement  in  literature.  He  revered  her,  to 
be  sure,  as  a  "steady  old  nurse  1  of  sound  letters;"  neverthe 
less,  he  ventured  to  hope  that  she  might  come  to  put  more  of 
enthusiasm  into  her  cherishment  of  the  written  word.  An 
interesting  pencil  note  dating  from  about  1897  must  not  be 
omitted  here: 

I  have  sometimes  thought  that  Willis*  falling  away  from 
stricter  Presbyterianism  and  disappointing  the  expectations  of 
those  who  had  admired  his  Scripture  pieces,  had  something  to  do 
with  Yale's  general,  subsequent  discredit  of  literature  and  of  its 
study — I  mean  strictly  belles-lettres  study.  Certain  it  is  Yale  has 
never  put  its  foot-ball  relish  into  letters  or  followers  of  letters ! 
All  that  related  to  rhetoric  or  composition  in  my  day  was  most 
shabbily  pursued  or  methodized;  nor,  indeed,  has  Yale  ever  put 
its  foot  strongly  in  that  direction.  The  President  (Stiles)  who 
wrote  most  perhaps,  was  credulous  and  sophomoric — not  of  a  cast 
to  kindle  great  warmth  letterward !  Dwight  was  more  so,  and 

1  American  Lands  and  Letters,  1.199. 
71 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

under  his  influence  we  have  Percival,  Humphreys,  Barlow,  and 
Trumbull.  Then  came  Jeremiah  Day,  who  wrote  the  Algebra  and 
On  the  Will,  not  either  violently  siimulative  of  poetry.  Lamed, 
who  was  Professor  of  Literature,  was  a  nemo,  caught  out  of  a 
country  pulpit  and  set  there.  Then  came  Woolsey:  he  indeed  had 
literary  ability  and  tastes;  he  made  reforms.  He  set  some  wheels 
a-turning,  and  stimulated  me  more  than  any  college  man  I  re 
member  toward  belles-lettres.  Porter  followed:  he  had  good  ap 
preciation,  but  strong  faith  in  old  Puritan  ways  of  education — 
philosophy  and  metaphysics;  Dr.  Edwards  was  as  his  sun  in  the 
heavens.  So  the  literary  tendency  at  Yale  had  to  go  exploratively 
through  metaphysic  morasses  before  there  came  any  emergence 
into  blossom;  and  the  consequence  was — there  was  very  little 
blossoming.  Few  people  sat  up  nights  in  Porter's  day  to  read 
poetry,  or  to  write  it. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  among  his  teachers,  Pro 
fessor  Woolsey  left  the  deepest  impress  for  good  upon  him, 
and  that  not  alone  in  one  way.  Another  of  his  random  notes 
mentions  the  "overspill  of  youthful  enthusiasms  during  re 
vival  days  at  Yale."  On  his  own  part,  it  seems  that  Donald 
had  a  natural  "hesitancy  about  declaratory  action — about 
the  grand  step  of  joining  church."  This  hesitancy,  he  af 
firms,  was  "quickened  by  the  calm  utterance  of  that  thought 
ful,  scholarly  Christian,  the  late  President  Woolsey:  'Be  sure 
of  yourself.  Don't  engage  for  a  life  on  the  strength  of  a 
spasm  of  hopefulness  and  resolve/'  The  calm  thoughtful- 
ness  of  Theodore  Woolsey  came  to  be  a  leading  characteristic 
of  Mr.  Mitchell's  own  life. 

It  must  have  been  with  more  of  gloom  than  of  joy  that 
the  young  Bachelor  of  Arts  left  his  college  home.  He  had 
indeed  brought  to  honorable  completion  a  difficult  task  and 
had  tasted  the  joy  of  achievement.  His  home  circle,  how- 

72 


THE    YALE    DAYS 

ever,  had  been  sorely  smitten,  his  sister  Elizabeth  was  near 
death,  and  he  himself  alarmingly  weak  and  ill.  He  returned 
to  the  farm-home  of  Mary  Goddard  at  Elmgrove  convinced 
that  he  had  at  most  only  a  few  years  to  live. 


73 


IV 
ON  THE  FARM 

You  know  that  I  had  learned  to  use  the  sickle  on  our  farm 
land  in  the  valley,  before  I  went  away;  and  could  bind  up  the  ears 
at  harvest  with  the  stoutest  of  my  men. — Fresh  Gleanings,  xvii. 

There  is  no  manner  of  work  done  upon  a  New  England  farm  to 
which  some  day  I  have  not  put  my  hand — whether  it  be  chopping 
wood,  laying  wall,  sodding  a  coal-pit,  cradling  oats,  weeding  corn, 
shearing  sheep,  or  sowing  turnips. — Out-of-Town  Places,  25. 

In  that  central  western  part  of  New  London  County, 
Connecticut,  which  borders  upon  the  county  of  Middlesex, 
lies  the  township  of  Salem.  Within  its  confines  are  the 
farmlands  which  once  belonged  to  the  Shaw,  Mumford,  and 
Woodbridge  families — hundreds  of  acres  of  the  stony  up 
land  and  meadow  so  characteristic  of  Connecticut.  It  is  a 
beautiful  region — now,  as  then,  lying  remote  from  the  main 
currents  of  life,  and  keeping  its  secrets  for  those  who  can 
find,  and  understand,  and  enter  into  them.  There  flow  lazy 
streams  amid  dreamful  meadows  and  under  the  shadows  of 
wooded  hillsides;  while  on  the  eastern  margin  lie  silent  lakes. 

The  main  features  of  its  landscape  have  found  fitting 
enshrinement  in  the  pages  of  the  Reveries  and  Dream  Life, 
where  Mr.  Mitchell  has  written  of  the  wild  stream — large 
enough  to  make  a  river  for  English  landscape — running 
through  the  valley  of  Elmgrove  and  winding  between  rich 
banks,  where  in  summer-time  the  swallows  build  their  nests 
and  brood.  Following  his  guidance,  we  may  see  the  tall 

74 


ON   THE    FARM 

elms  rising  here  and  there  along  the  margin,  with  their  up 
lifted  arms  and  leafy  spray  throwing  great  patches  of  shade 
upon  the  meadow,  and  the  old  lion-like  oaks  where  the 
meadow  soil  hardens  into  rolling  upland  fastening  to  the 
ground  with  their  ridgy  roots,  and  with  their  gray,  scraggy 
limbs  making  delicious  shelter.  There  are  banks  which  roll 
up  swiftly  into  sloping  hills  covered  with  groves  of  oaks,  and 
green  pasturelands  dotted  with  mossy  oaks.  There,  too,  is 
a  wide  swampwood  which  in  the  autumn-time  is  covered 
with  a  scarlet  sheet  blotched  here  and  there  by  the  dark 
crimson  stains  of  the  ash-tops.1  Changed  in  some  particu 
lars  since  1840,  the  township  retains  the  essential  features  of 
those  early  days. 

In  the  midst  of  this  township  and  this  valley,  all  within 
hailing  distance  of  one  another,  are  two  ancestral  home 
steads  and  a  modest  country  cottage.  That  one  in  the  valley 
is  Elmgrove,  the  old  Mumford  mansion,  dating  from  about 
1769-1770;  that  one  just  across  the  valley  on  a  southern 
slope  is  the  Woodbridge  house,  built  in  1791-1792  as  a  home 
for  the  youthful  Nathaniel  Shaw  Woodbridge  and  his  newly 
wedded,  equally  youthful  wife,  Elizabeth  Mumford.  To  the 
east,  and  just  below  the  ridge  on  which  stands  the  Wood- 
bridge  house,  is  the  little  cottage  which,  as  the  "quiet  farm 
house"  of  the  Reveries ,  is  sure  of  enduring  fame.  When  the 
final  settlement  of  his  mother's  estate  was  made,  Donald 
inherited  the  "quiet  farm  house"  and  about  400  acres  of 
adjoining  land. 

It  was  to  this  remote  and  delightsome  region  that  he 
came  after  his  graduation.  His  cousin,  Mary  Perkins,  now 
the  wife  of  Mr.  Levi  H.  Goddard,  was  living  in  the  Elmgrove 
house,  and  it  was  with  her  that  he  made  his  home.  A  tenant- 

t  l  See  Reveries,  141-148;  Dream  Life,  111-117. 

75 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

farmer  occupied  the  cottage  and  cultivated  the  inherited 
acres.  Donald  set  himself  at  once  to  the  general  supervision 
of  his  farm  and,  as  strength  permitted  and  inclination  di 
rected,  entered  actively  into  all  the  agricultural  labors. 
Agriculture  at  that  period — especially  in  the  remote  dis 
tricts  of  Connecticut — was  in  a  primitive  state,  and  farmers 
did  not  listen  with  approval  to  what  they  considered  the 
new-fangled  notions  of  book- farmers.  The  youthful  pro 
prietor  had  ample  opportunity  to  study  the  effects  of  stolid 
ignorance  and  to  catch  inspiration  for  a  betterment  of  con 
ditions.1 

The  actual  farm  work  he  varied  with  hunting,  fishing, 
reading,  drawing,  driving,  and  strolling.  Twelve-mile  drives 
across  country  to  Norwich  to  market  farm  products  com 
bined  business  with  pleasure.  So  far  as  possible  he  lived  an 
open-air  life,  spending  whole  days  under  the  shades  of  the 
loved  trees,  "inviting  his  soul,"  building  dream-castles  whose 
foundations  were  not  yet  seen  of  men.  It  was  a  dual  life. 
On  the  one  hand,  it  was  giving  the  young  graduate  a  direct 
experience  of  the  land,  teaching  him  the  limitations  and  the 
possibilities — the  advantages  and  the  disadvantages — of 
farming.  On  the  other,  it  was  affording  him  a  quiet  season 
of  growth.  Away  from  the  world,  living  a  life  of  essential 
solitude,  alone  with  books  and  his  own  thoughts,  absorbing 
through  every  sense  the  beauties  of  earth  and  sky,  he  was 
silently  growing  the  first-fruits  of  his  soul  and  in  quietude 
ripening  them  to  the  harvest. 

It  was  at  no  time  of  his  life  a  habit  to  keep  an  extended 
private  diary.  Now  and  then,  however,  for  limited  periods, 
he  made  a  few  entries;  and  there  remains  a  note-book  in 
which,  under  the  head  of  "Jottings  Down  in  the  Country," 

1  See  the  chapter,  "An  Old-Style  Farm,"  in  Out-oj-Town  Places,  3-26. 

76 


ON   THE    FARM 

he  has  written  the  record  of  four  August  days.  Evidently 
tiring  of  the  practice,  he  did  not  continue  beyond  the  fourth 
entry.  These  jottings  are  delightfully  illuminating.  Here, 
in  his  own  words,  we  may  read  the  story  of  the  half-idle, 
half-busy  life  he  was  leading.  Here  we  may  follow  the 
delicious  nothings,  the  whimsical  reasonings,  the  occasions 
of  merriment,  the  worth-while  readings,  the  reflections  on 
taste,  which  were  filling  his  days: 

Aug.  26th,  1841.  This  day  pleasant.  Practiced  shooting  in 
the  morning.  Afternoon  strolled  away  with  my  gun,  and  brought 
back  a  robin  and  a  fine,  fat  hen-partridge;  which  last  I  brought 
down  from  the  wing,  being  the  second  bird  I  ever  killed  thus. 
Some  compunctions  about  the  cruelty  of  bird-killing,  but  find  them 
marvellously  absorbed  in  the  pleasure  of  bringing  down  fine  game 
at  a  good  shooting  distance.  Query:  How  know  we  but  it  af 
fords  inferior  animals  delight  to  die?  So  strange  a  proposition  I 
dare  hardly  write  down  without  summing  up  the  reflections  that 
suggest  it  to  my  mind.  1st.  Nothing  in  Nature  leads  us  to  sup 
pose  the  negative  of  the  proposition,  but  an  analogy  from  our 
finely  wrought  constitutions  to  those  of  a  humbler  and  infinitely 
less  complicated  structure.  Farther,  it  is  from  an  analogy  be 
tween  matter  imbued  with  thinking  properties:  the  residence  of  a 
soul,  and  mere  animated  matter.  Again,  the  analogy  is  imperfect 
from  the  fact  that  it  is  between  reasonable  creatures,  capable  of 
qualifying  pain  to  almost  any  degree  by  imagination,  and  creatures 
utterly  destitute  of  this  faculty.  Again,  how  far  pain  pertains  to 
our  animal  structure  exclusively,  rather  than  the  amalgamation  of 
body  and  mind,  is  a  matter  resting  only  upon  the  very  feeble 
analogy  of  apparent  suffering  in  brutes;  and  this  apparent  suffering 
is  deduced  from  the  violent  throes  and  muscular  contortions  of 
animals  when  injured,  of  which  throes  and  contortions,  however,  a 
dead  body  is  susceptible  under  galvanic  influences,  and  of  that 
dead  body  pain  cannot  surely  be  predicated. 

77 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

2d.  Supposing  the  analogy  good,  which,  after  all,  but  creates 
violent  probability,  is  there  not  enough  to  combat  that  violent 
probability  in  the  known  justice  and  benevolence  of  the  Deity, 
who  in  creating  animals  for  much  enjoyment  should  counter 
balance  their  sum  of  enjoyment  by  a  painfully  agonizing  death? 

But  supposing  jd,  that  the  last  hypothesis  is  feebly  sustained, 
am  I  not  at  liberty  to  support  the  proposition  asserted,  in  justifi 
cation  of  my  sporting  propensity,  by  the  fact  that  a  gunshot  wound, 
speedily  terminating  the  existence  of  fowls,  does  afford  pleasure, 
when  compared  with  the  throes  of  natural  disease,  the  imbecility 
and  consequent  starvation  of  age,  or  yet  the  jaws  of  rapacious 
animals? 

But  again,  and  in  disregard  of  the  proposition  unfolded  under 
the  foregoing  remarks;  even  assuming  that  gaming  does  occasion 
intense  suffering,  though  of  course  no  more  than  the  slaughter  of 
domestic  fowls,  what  then?  Shall  the  infliction  of  pain  prevent 
my  consuming  animal  food?  The  question  applies  with  equal 
force  to  the  slaughter  of  beeves  or  other  marketable  products,  and 
of  wild  game.  Unless  I  am  told  the  one  is  necessary,  the  other 
not.  But  where  is  this  question  of  necessity  to  end?  Forswear 
the  catching  of  mackerel,  and  satisfy  hunger  with  additional 
quantities  of  cod,  or  if  [it  is]  not  to  be  obtained,  the  flesh  of  the 
most  ordinary  market  food;  deny  the  appetite  every  delicacy  of 
the  sea  and  the  air,  and  shrive  it  with  the  commoner  products  of 
nature:  such  must  be  the  conclusion  of  those  who  contend  against 
so  called  unnecessary  cruelty. 

But  birds  are  of  the  beauties  of  nature,  the  orchestra  of  our 
planet,  singing  to  the  Power  that  made  them.  Such  sentiments 
are  sweet  and  holy  poetry,  but  impartial  reasoning  lays  them  by, 
or  with  equal  effect  predicates  the  same  delightful  thoughts  of  the 
playful  lamb  frolicking  on  sun-painted  hills,  or  silver-scaled  fish 
leaping  in  the  glad  waters  and  ever  making  the  sea  to  murmur  a 
tribute  of  praise  to  the  God  that  holds  it  in  his  hand. 

So  much  for  bird-killing.    Yet  to  see  the  poor  victim  of  a  sports- 

78 


ON    THE    FARM 

man's  aim,  with  its  death  wound,  wheeling  round  and  round  in 
smaller  and  smaller  circles,  and  fluttering  and  fluttering,  then  fall 
ing  to  gasp  and  die —  Oh,  it  is  sad;  and  it  is  sad  to  see  the  fair 
ones  of  earth's  creation,  be  they  soulless  or  immortal,  failing  with 
death's  dart  plunged  to  the  quick — fainting  and  dying;  and  it  is 
sad  to  see  Time  shooting  down  young  hours  and  bright  days  and 
weeks,  and  they  all  dying;  and  it  is  sad  to  see  one's  budding  years 
shot  down.  Ah,  Time  is  a  rare  sportsman,  and  Death  carries  his 
game-bag ! 

Howbeit,  my  hen-partridge,  under  the  good  cookage  of  a  Mis 
tress  of  the  Art,  was  pronounced  a  rare  meal;  and  the  poor  robin, 
had  he  lived  in  Virgil's  time,  might  be  now  tuning  his  seraph 
throat  in  Elysian  fields.  Tired  with  tramping,  night  came  grate 
fully,  as  he  always  does  in  country  homes,  and  gratefully  I  lay 
myself  in  his  dark  arms. 

Aug.  ayth.  Rain — rain — rain — a  fine  day  for  trout;  but  my 
garments  are  hardly  weather-proof,  and  my  lines  are  all  of  the 
plain  honest,  brown-faced  hemp  which  the  perch  nor  the  pike  quar 
rel  with,  though  they  struggle  hard  with  it;  but  the  coy  swimmer 
of  the  brook  passes  by.  Silk,  green  as  his  own  bright  streams,  and 
tiny  as  the  tissue  of  his  fin,  entices  most  the  king  of  the  water-game. 

Elmgrove  was  thrown  into  a  state  of  wonder  this  morning  by 
the  announcement  from  the  stable  that  Bess,  the  black  sow,  had 
borne  into  the  world  a  litter  of  six  black  pigs,  sleek  and  modest  as 
their  dam.  Such  events  always  by  some  strange  association  lead 
me  into  a  train  of  sad  reflections  upon  the  emptiness  of  worldly 
hopes,  and  the  vexatious  cares  which  buffet  us  whichever  way  we 
turn.  I  gave  them  to  the  family  at  dinner  in  an  anapestic  ode. 
For  a  while  they  looked  serious,  almost  alarmed;  but  when  I 
smiled  in  concluding,  it  proved  the  spark  for  firing  a  magazine  of 
hilarity,  and  though  a  good  laugher  myself,  I  was  fairly  put  to  the 
blush. 

Noon  and  night  both  came  round  to-day  with  rain  unabated, 
and  if  those  sharp  and  heavy  fires  of  Junius  upon  the  poor  Duke  of 

79 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

Grafton  hadn't  waked  me  up  as  if  I  were  on  a  fox  track,  I  should 
have  written  this  down  in  my  journal,  as  I  do  sometimes,  A  Dull 
Day.  I  wonder  what  politicians  of  the  day  think  of  Junius?  To 
my  fancy  there  is  not  a  book  in  the  whole  range  of  letters,  unless 
it  be  some  of  Burke's  marvellous  production — "Letters  on  the 
Regicide  Peace,"  or  "To  a  Noble  Lord" — which  would  so  well  fit 
a  man  to  stand  in  that  great  hall  upon  the  hill  at  Washington,  and 
test  with  consummate  art  every  device  offered  for  the  adoption  of 
the  nation.  And  not  only  would  they  qualify  to  test,  but  to  de 
nounce  with  bolts  of  argumentation  that  would  not  be  withstood; 
or  as  the  case  might  be,  uphold  with  a  giant  grasp  till  the  puny 
athletes  of  the  modern  school  of  politics  were  wearied  in  their 
efforts  to  pull  down. 

We  country  people  do  sometimes  wonder  whether  the  legislators 
at  the  Capitol,  save  some  few,  are  men  tried  in  all  the  changeful 
aptitudes  of  government,  and  learned  in  its  throng  of  concentric 
revolution;  whether  they  have  deeply  studied  the  past  and  the 
present,  and  balance  them  daily  on  their  votes;  whether  the  great 
political  reformers  of  every  age  have  their  place  in  their  minds  and 
shed  their  light  on  the  paths  of  Republican  experiment;  whether 
they  have  ever  digested  in  their  own  minds  the  great  system  of 

American  law?  On  such  an  inquiry,  I  could  hardly  sleep 

soundly,  were  it  not  for  the  music  of  incessant  water-drops  patter 
ing  on  roof  and  window. 

Aug.  28th.  Rain  still,  fine,  penetrating,  grass-growing  rain. 
It  occurred  to  me  to-day  as  I  was  looking  over  the  wide,  green 
meadow  stretching  down  before  the  winds  and  the  clouds,  that  no 
painter  has  ever  attempted  a  portraiture  of  Nature  in  one  of  her 
gayest  and  liveliest  frolics — a  hard  rain.  And  really  it  would  be  a 
noble  triumph  of  art,  to  trickle  the  rain  drops  from  the  canvas  foli 
age,  and  dimple  the  pool  with  the  laughing  eddies.1  Farming  on 
such  a  day  is  carried  on  with  vigor  by  Nature,  but  with  a  slack 

1  Readers  of  Mr.  Mitchell's  works  will  recognize  this  as  the  germ  of  the  passage, 
"A  Picture  of  Rain,"  in  Wet  Days  at  Edgewood,  103. 

80 


ON   THE    FARM 

hand  by  man.  Still,  the  ingenious  and  the  diligent  find  much  in 
a  storm  to  be  grateful  for  aside  from  the  watering  of  earth's 
products.  No  properly  educated  farmer  should  be  without  his 
mechanic  implements  and  his  mechanical  ability.  And  with  these 
he  will  find  a  pleasure  equal  to  any  the  work  of  his  hands  af 
fords  in  examining  his  churn,  his  plow,  his  harrow,  etc.;  or,  if  like 
myself,  he  occasionally  strolls  off  with  his  gun  or  his  rod,  the  one 
is  to  be  cleaned  and  oiled,  the  other  to  be  set  in  order.  Strange — 
strange — must  be  the  pleasure  of  a  closed-up  city  life — its  avenues 
thronged  with  miserable  debauchees,  and  its  reality  commuted  for 
gain  !  When  will  man  learn  that  in  his  thirst  for  wealth  he  forgets 
its  object;  when  will  the  miserly  farmer  (for  we  have  them)  change 
meagerness  for  beauty;  when  will  taste  supplant  niggardness; 
when  will  he  believe  that  the  cool  of  a  rich  shade  is  worth  more  to 
his  soul  than  the  paltry  price  which  the  sun-nurtured  herbage  adds 
to  his  store?  When  will  he  build  up  among  these  glens  of  old  Con 
necticut,  and  on  her  oak-clad  uplands,  rich  specimens  of  a  taste  re 
fined  by  the  study  of  Vitruvius;  and  when  will  a  Cato  teach,  before 
the  maxims  of  ancestral  economy?  Gaunt,  cheerless  piles  of 
building  of  a  two-story  height  proclaim  its  owner  "forehanded," 
when  a  day's  study,  and  pleasant  hours  of  relaxation  over  pages  of 
British  taste,  would  have  placed  in  the  forsaken  grove  of  his 
"sheep-pasture"  a  cottage  of  rural  beauty,  amply  large  for  his 
wants,  and  adorned  with  that  simple  elegance  that  proclaims 
its  owner  a  man  of  soul !  Dear  to  my  heart  are  the  thatched 
roofs  of  England's  better  days,  the  diamond  window,  the  oaken 
wainscoting,  the  loops  for  the  match-lock,  the  "varnished  clock," 
the  "sanded  floor,"  the  huge  arm-chair;  aye,  even  the  gable  ends 
and  the  stacks  of  stout  chimneys  of  Dutch  inheritance  are  far  more 
sightly  than  the  shameless  concubinage  of  lumber  and  brick  and 
plaster  that  hide  the  families  of  too  many  of  our  Connecticut  hus 
bandry.  This  is  not  poetry.  I  care  not  if  these  notions  be  sub 
jected  to  the  Procrustean  bed  of  modern  economy.  Tell  me,  man 
of  a  one  hundred,  a  two  hundred,  or  five  hundred  acre  farm,  would 

81 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

it  have  cost  you  more  to  build  in  place  of  your  mammoth  house 
with  its  parlors  and  parlor  chambers  vacant  and  noiseless  save  the 
chirpings  of  some  lost  crickets,  and  the  weekly  visitings  of  your 
housewife,  brushing  in  stockinged  feet  the  dust  from  their  lintels; 
would  it  have  cost  you  more  to  have  bestowed  your  earnings  on  a 
tasteful  cottage  ever  gleeful  from  cellar  to  gable  end  with  the 
sounds  of  domestic  joy?  In  place  of  your  carpetless  and  comfort 
less  chambers  to  have  made  rich  with  bodily  comforts  and  much 
food  for  the  mind  some  little  nook  above  the  noisy  nursery  of  the 
neatly  shaded  cottage  ?  Away,  away,  say  we  who  think 

"the  rocks  and  whispering  trees 
Do  still  perform  mysterious  offices; " 

away  with  that  utilitarian  spirit  which  overlooks  the  highest 
utility — the  culture  of  man's  immortal  part — which  would  by  ex 
ample  rear  children  to  a  distaste  for  beauty  and  invest  their  grow 
ing  minds  in  a  garb  meager  as  my  neighbor's  smock  frock,  and 
stinted  as  the  goose-fed  herbage  by  his  door. 

Aug.  29th.  Sunday  is  always  more  welcome  in  the  country 
than  elsewhere,  and  I  dare  not  anima  mea  in  cognita  say  entirely 
welcome;  and  why  should  this  be  so? 

These  jottings  shall  be  supplemented  by  a  brief  para 
graph  from  one  of  his  magazine  articles  which  dates  from 
this  same  period: 

The  smaller  fish  .  .  .  abound  [in  New  England  waters]  and, 
together  with  the  perch  and  pike,  conspire  to  make  agreeable  an 
afternoon's  idlesse  on  the  bosom  of  one  of  those  fairy  lakes  which, 
though  they  be  not  christened  with  the  romantic  euphony  of 
Lochs  Tay,  Craig,  Ness,  and  Awe,  possess  equal  charms  within 
and  around,  and  are  scattered  like  pearl-drops  all  over  the  surface 
of  New  England.  On  an  August  day  when  every  element  was 
sleeping,  the  trees  not  breaking  their  picturesque  line  upon  the  sky 
by  the  faintest  motion — the  water  placid — nothing  stirring  save 

82 


ON    THE    FARM 

the  summer  bird  peeping  and  leaping  by  the  shore,  and  the  gauze- 
winged  fly  — 


Tov  \d\ov  a  \a\6e(rcra,  TOV  einrrepov  a  7rTe/>oe(7<raJ 
Tbv  %evov  a  geiva,  TOV  Oepivbv  depivd  l  — 

on  such  a  morning,  ere  yet  it  was  fairly  broke  into  the  sky,  have 
we  paddled  a  rolling  canoe  into  the  center  of  one  of  these  same  fairy 
water-spots  and  angled  the  live-long  day  with  no  companions  but 
the  tall  hills  climbing  round  and  the  old  gray  tree  trunks  stretching 
through  their  dark  and  heavy  foliage,  and  we  wished  no  better. 
Though  nothing  save  the  minnow  and  roach  played  about  our 
hook  till  night,  yet  we  found  it  withal  "a  rest  to  the  mind,  a  cheerer 
of  spirits,  a  diverter  of  sadness,  a  calmer  of  unquiet  thoughts,  a 
moderator  of  passions,  a  procurer  of  contentedness."  2 

All  the  while  he  was  diligently  following  his  literary  pur 
suits,  and  his  studies  of  the  practical  and  aesthetic  branches 
of  agriculture.  Between  June  1842  and  January  1844,  he 
contributed  a  total  of  sixty-one  pages  to  the  Knickerbocker 
Magazine,  the  North  American  Review,  and  the  New  Eng- 
lander.  The  current  magazines  and  the  new  books  found 
their  way  to  his  country  residence.  It  was  in  the  summer 
of  1843  tnat  ne  secured  the  recently  issued  American  edition 
of  Sketches  by  Boz,  the  first  of  Dickens's  works  to  come  into 
his  hands.  He  kept  in  close  touch  with  the  valuable  writings 
of  A.  J.  Downing,  a  pioneer  advocate  of  landscape-gardening 
and  rural  architecture  in  America.  On  the  5th  of  September 
1842,  he  began  an  "Index  of  Agriculture:  being  notes  from 
best  authorities  on  the  improvement  of  soils,  crops,  and  cat- 

1  This  passage  from  Evenus  (Anthologia  Palatina,  9.122),  always  a  favorite 
with  Mr.  Mitchell,  he  rendered  thus  (about  1840): 

Fellow  prattlers,  winged  both,  both  visitants  together, 
The  summer  bird,  the  summer  fly,  both  fond  of  summer  weather. 
1  North  American  Review  (October  1842),  370-371. 

83 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

tie,  together  with  general  information  useful  to  the  land 
holder,"  placing  upon  its  title-page  an  echo  of  his  recent 
classical  studies,  adapted  to  suit  his  own  humor: 

Quid  faciat  laetas  segetes,  quo  sidere  terrain 
Vertere  .  .  . 

Conveniat,  quae  cura  bourn,  qui  cultus  habendo 
Sit  pecori,  atquae  porcis  quanta  experentia  parcis, 
Hinc  discere  incipiam.  .  .  .  i 


In  1843  tne  New  York  State  Agricultural  Society  awarded 
him  a  silver  medal  for  prize  plans  of  farm-buildings.  This 
first  trophy  of  his  agricultural  studies  and  his  self-taught 
draftsmanship  he  cherished  with  peculiar  affection,  regard 
ing  it  with  much  more  satisfaction  and  pleasure  than  he  re 
garded  later  and  larger  achievement. 

Meanwhile,  in  a  manner  which  he  himself  did  not  perhaps 
entirely  understand,  the  spell  of  the  countryside  was  grow 
ing  upon  him.  His  natural  shyness  was  deepening,  his  love 
of  solitude  was  changing  him  into  something  of  a  recluse. 
A  seeming  inertia  was  holding  him.  All  this  the  keen  eye 
of  Gen.  Williams  saw.  Without  consulting  his  ward,  the 
businesslike  guardian  entered  into  negotiations  with  Mr. 
Joel  W.  White,  newly  appointed  consul  to  Liverpool,  and 
secured  for  Donald  a  secretaryship  in  the  consular  office. 
With  characteristic  abruptness,  the  matter  was  broached. 
"Donald,"  said  Gen.  Williams,  "I  have  been  observing  you 
carefully  the  last  few  months,  and  I  regret  to  say  that  you 
are  becoming  too  fond  of  your  isolated  life.  You  are  stag- 

1  Virgil,  Georgic,  1.1-5;  as  rendered  by  Arthur  S.  Way: 

What  maketh  the  harvest's  golden  laughter,  what  star-clusters  guide 
The  yeoman  for  turning  the  furrow,  for  wedding  the  elm  to  his  bride, 
All  rearing  of  cattle,  all  tending  of  flocks,  all  mysteries 
By  old  experience  taught  of  the  treasure-hoarding  bees  — 
These  shall  be  theme  of  my  song. 

84 


ON   THE    FARM 

nating.  You  are  wasting  your  abilities  on  that  inland  farm. 
I  have  secured  for  you  a  position  with  Mr.  White,  our  consul 
to  Liverpool,  and  have  engaged  your  passage  to  England. 
You  are  to  go  to-morrow  to  Norwich  to  begin  arrangements 
for  your  journey." 

Just  what  Donald  replied  is  not  known,  but  we  do  have 
his  own  later  account  of  the  decision  made.  Just  as  he  was 
dreaming  of  how  the  old  farm  might  be  stirred  into  new  life, 
"there  came,"  he  wrote,  "a  flattering  invitation  to  change 
the  scene  of  labor  and  of  observation,  a  single  night  only 
being  given  for  decision.  I  remember  the  night  as  if  only 
this  morning's  sun  broke  it,  and  kindled  it  into  day.  One 
way,  the  brooks,  the  oaks,  the  crops,  the  memories,  the 
homely  hopes  lured  me;  the  other  way  I  saw  splendid  and 
enticing  phantasmagoria — London  Bridge,  St.  Paul's,  Prince 
Hal,  Fleet  Street,  Bolt  Court,  Kenilworth,  wild  ruins.  Next 
morning  I  gave  the  key  of  the  corn-crib  to  the  foreman  and 
bade  the  farm-land  adieu."  1 

In  after  years  Mr.  Mitchell  used  to  tell  his  children  that 
had  it  not  been  for  Gen.  Williams  he  might  have  settled  down 
to  a  quiet  life  of  farming  and  his  whole  career  have  been 
quite  other  than  it  was.  He  was  always  grateful  that  his 
old  guardian  had  pricked  him  into  action.  With  the  excep 
tion  of  two  long  drives — one  to  Hartford,  Connecticut,  the 
other  to  Putney,  Vermont — he  had  during  three  years 
scarcely  stirred  beyond  the  near  limits  of  his  Salem  farm. 
He  was  now  sufficiently  strong  to  travel  without  discomfort. 
On  the  1 6th  day  of  October  1844,  he  sailed  from  Boston  on 
the  steamship  Caledonia  for  Liverpool. 

1  Out-of-Town  Places,  24-25. 


EUROPE 

Yet  is  it  useless — altogether  useless — the  effort  to  make 

words  paint  the  passions  that  blaze  in  a  man's  heart  as  he  wanders 
for  the  first  time  over  the  glorious  old  highways  of  Europe  ! — Fresh 
G/eaningSy  xvii. 

A  man  does  not  know  England,  or  English  landscape,  or  English 
country  feeling,  until  he  has  broken  away  from  railways,  from 
cities,  from  towns,  and  clambered  over  stiles  and  lost  himself  in 
the  fields. — My  Farm  of  Edgewood,  317. 

On  the  jd  of  October  1844,  in  company  with  the  ever- 
faithful  Mary  Goddard,  Donald  was  driving  along  the  old 
Essex  turnpike  on  his  way  to  Norwich  to  complete  arrange 
ments  for  his  sailing.  The  two  cousins  talked  much  of 
this  sudden  change  in  his  quiet  life,  and  speculated  after  the 
fashion  of  young  people  on  what  the  future  might  hold  in 
store.  As  he  passed  along  the  quiet  country  road  on  that 
golden  October  morning  his  mind  was  busy  with  memories 
which  even  the  anticipations  of  foreign  travel  could  not  en 
tirely  suppress.  He  must  have  recalled  that  other  morning 
fourteen  years  before  when  he  and  his  father  were  journey 
ing  to  the  Ellington  school,  and  there  must  have  come  a  train 
of  sad  reflections  upon  that  "inscrutable  Providence"  which 
had  wrought  such  changes  in  the  family  circle  since  then. 
At  the  very  beginning  of  his  Salem  residence  Elizabeth  had 
died  at  the  age  of  seventeen.  Lucretia,  his  only  remaining 
sister,  married  now  and  living  in  West  Springfield,  Massa 
chusetts,  was  failing  in  health,  and  awaiting  with  quiet  dig- 

86 


EUROPE 

nity  the  death  which  she  and  her  friends  believed  to  be  near 
and  certain.  The  two  brothers — Louis,  eighteen,  and  Al 
fred,  twelve  years  old — under  the  guardianship  of  Gen. 
Williams  were  continuing  their  school  work  and  gathering 
some  little  fund  of  business  knowledge.  So  far  as  family 
affairs  were  concerned,  Donald  felt  free  to  go.  Undoubtedly 
there  came  to  him  some  vague  thoughts  that  henceforward 
his  life  would  be  different;  it  is  not  likely  that  he  realized 
how  complete  was  to  be  the  break  with  the  old  days,  how 
enlarging  the  experiences  which  awaited  him. 

In  the  early  forties  a  trip  to  Europe  was  not  the  cus 
tomary  and  easy  thing  that  it  is  to-day.  For  the  great  ma 
jority  of  Americans  the  "Old  Country'*  was  still  a  far-away 
region,  sufficiently  unknown  to  be  a  land  of  interest  and  won 
der,  from  which  travel  letters  were  eagerly  read.  Donald 
was  among  the  pioneers  of  those  young  Americans  who,  fired 
by  the  descriptions  of  Washington  Irving,  enthusiastically 
followed  the  trails  of  adventure  and  romance  which  Europe 
then  offered.  It  is  interesting  to  remember  that  only  three 
months  before,  on  July  ist,  1844,  Bayard  Taylor  had  sailed 
on  the  packet-ship  Oxford  for  Liverpool  to  begin  his  Euro 
pean  wanderings,  and  that  he  returned  to  America  on  the 
ist  of  June  1846,  three  months  before  Donald.  The  paths 
of  the  two  travellers  often  crossed,  and  in  1846,  immediately 
upon  its  publication,  Donald  bought  the  two  paper-bound 
volumes  of  the  first  edition  of  Taylor's  Views  A-foot;  but  it 
was  not  until  several  years  later  at  the  Century  Club  in  New 
York  City  that  they  met  and  became  warm  friends. 

Most  of  the  frequent  and  long  letters  which  Donald  wrote 
to  Gen.  Williams  and  Mary  Goddard  have  been  preserved. 
In  addition  there  are  the  five  little  note-books,  or  travel 
diaries,  by  means  of  which  we  are  enabled  to  follow  every 

87 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

step  of  his  journeying.     Much  of  this  chapter,  therefore, 
will  be  in  the  traveller's  own  words: 

We  are  at  length  in  England  [runs  his  first  letter  from  Liverpool 
to  Gen.  Williams  under  date  of  joth  October  1844].  For  the  pas 
sage  has  been  a  long  one — long  for  me,  longer  for  Mr.  White  who 
has  been  sick  nearly  the  whole  passage.  I  had  no  positive  sick 
ness;  but  suffered  from  tedium,  from  damp,  from  our  uneasy  mo 
tion,  from  a  thousand  offensive  smells  and  sights,  and  the  general 
dullness  which  seemed  to  pervade  the  whole  ship's  company.  At 
Halifax  we  were  all  in  good  spirits,  having  enjoyed  the  novelty 
without  serious  appreciation  of  the  discomforts.  But  the  relapse 
came  even  before  the  fair  winds  which  pushed  us  along  at  the  rate 
of  250  miles  a  day  had  wholly  changed  their  course.  All  the  happy 
plans  laid  out  for  occupation,  were  unfortunately  remembered 
only  as  we  remember  the  ghost-stories  of  childhood.  There  was 
too  much  striving  to  keep  one's  body  upright  and  stomach  sound 
and  heart  awake  and  head  from  being  dizzy  to  even  think  of  the 
energy  of  serious  endeavor.  Indeed,  I  may  set  the  fortnight  of 
sail  down  as  the  longest  in  a  long  course  of  years.  The  closeness, 
the  damp,  the  strange  motion,  the  hurry,  the  jostling,  and  all  need 
a  practical  sort  of  philosophy  which  I  have  not  yet. 

The  beautiful  sunrises,  moreover,  that  my  new  habits  were  to 
cause  me  to  witness,  were  always  covered  up  in  mist  and  clouds  as 
thick  as  the  blankets  and  berth-curtains  that  at  the  same  time 
covered  me.  We  had  three  or  four  very  hard  blows  from  the  south 
west,  such  as  would  be  called  ashore,  hurricanes.  After  this,  winds 
prevailed  from  southeast,  giving  us  a  rough  and  cold  and  wet  recep 
tion  off  Cape  Clear.  We  passed  Bantra  Bay  Monday  forenoon, 
and  were  off  Holyhead  Tuesday  night  at  10;  took  a  pilot  at  ii; 
were  anchored  in  the  Mersey  at  4.  ... 

.  .  .  We  are  thus  early  established  in  winter  quarters  at  the 
Clayton  Arms  Hotel,  Clayton  Square,  where  we  have  a  snug  parlor 
handsomely  furnished  .  .  .  beside  two  bedrooms.  .  .  .  These  all, 


EUROPE 

with  meals  served  at  any  hour  and  free  attendance  of  servants  for — 
I  don't  violate  confidence  in  this — £3.  ios.;  each  per  week  equal  to 
$6.60.  Mr.  White  empowered  me  to  treat  for  this  bargain  with 
our  very  pretty  landlady  below — her  terms  having  been  named  at 
two  guineas  each.  Of  course  I  represented  in  as  fair  terms  as  possi 
ble  the  advantages  resulting  from  the  patronage  of  the  Consul,  &c., 
&c.,  and  succeeded  in  making  present  arrangement.  The  office  is 
fifteen  minutes'  walk  from  this  and  the  great  thoroughfares,  only 
a  stone's  throw  off.  So  we  have  the  advantage  of  nearness  to  busi 
ness,  without  its  noise.  .  .  . 

On  the  following  day  he  wrote  a  long  letter  to  Mary 
Goddard: 

Well,  here  I  am,  Mary,  in  Mrs.  Tribes'  Clayton  Arms  Hotel, 
Clayton  Square,  Liverpool;  in  a  second-floor  parlor  with  Liverpool 
coal  burning  cheerfully  as  is  its  wont,  Mr.  White  at  the  same  table 
writing  his  wife.  We  have  taken  quarters  for  the  winter,  having 
this  snug  parlor  with  sofa,  mahogany  chairs,  center  table,  damask 
and  muslin  curtains,  Brussels  carpet,  windows  opening  to  the 
floor,  and  folding  doors  to  throw  us  open  a  suite  of  rooms  on  occa 
sion  of  future  entertainments  to  be  given  our  American  captains. 
Beside  this,  two  bedrooms,  No.  I  for  myself  two  doors  off  on  same 
floor,  with  tall  curtained  bed  .  .  .  and  Mr.  White's  farther  on 
along  the  gas-lighted  corridor.  The  house  is  not  a  large  one,  nor 
one  of  great  note;  but  retired,  reputable,  and  near  the  Consulate 
office.  Our  meals  are  served  to  order  at  whatever  hour,  in  what 
ever  style,  and  as  luxuriantly  as  directed.  All  the  hotels  are  of  this 
sort.  No  table  d'hote.  Thus,  to-night  at  tea  appeared  an  elegant 
loaf  of  bread,  a  tea-tray,  silver  tea-pot,  &c.,  two  glass  cups,  one  of 
black,  the  other  of  green  tea  (dry),  a  hot  tea-kettle  on  the  grate, 
hot  tea-cakes,  butter,  &c.,  and  a  gentlemanly  fellow  to  wait  our 
bidding.  At  dinner  comes  up  a  tureen  of  soup;  that  removed, 
there  appears  a  dish  of  fish  and  potatoes;  next  a  piece  of  roast  beef 
or  other  meat;  then  pie  or  pudding;  then  celery  and  done.  I  forget 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

the  beautiful  English  cheese — don't  talk  of  Salem  or  Pomfret 
cheeses — this  Cheshire  one  is  as  yellow  as  gold,  as  big  as  a  table,  as 
sweet  as  honey,  as  rich  as  butter,  as  fresh  as  ice,  and  as  luscious  as 
a  peach. 

But  I  am  beginning  at  the  end.  Didn't  you  ever  suspect  that  I 
was  going  out  in  some  sort  of  companionship  with  Mr.  White, 
after  all  the  little  coincidences  which  I  supposed  would  have  been 
as  strong  as  proofs  of  holy  writ?  And  do  you  rashly  condemn  my 
want  of  confidence  for  not  making  fuller  disclosures  ?  I  was  not 
allowed  to  do  so — it  was  better  so  for  Mr.  White  and  better  for 
me — to  escape  sundry  banterings  which  very  likely  might  have 
been  thrust  on  me  at  home.  Still  I  trust  I  should  have  had  too 
much  good  sense  to  suffer  a  mere  political  propriety  to  stand  in  the 
way  of  a  chance  for  improvement  which  might  perhaps  never  again 
occur. 

I  do  not  regret  the  determination.  I  find  Mr.  White  kind  and 
obliging — not  as  much  polish  as  I  would  wish — but  great  plainness 
and  honesty — and  great  practical  force  of  character. 

But  of  the  voyage.  .  .  .  For  first  four  or  five  days  had  pleas 
ant  weather;  that  is  to  say,  a  fair  wind  but  no  sun  or  clear  sky- 
indeed  I  have  not  seen  the  sun  for  an  hour  together  since  leaving 
Boston  dock !  After  the  four,  had  four  or  five  severe,  very  severe 
gales  from  southwest.  An  old  navy  officer  on  board  pronounced 
them  the  hardest  gales  he  had  ever  experienced.  You  can  form  no 
conception  of  the  force  of  a  blow  at  sea;  the  steamer  rolled  to  lee 
ward  so  as  to  forbid  all  standing  upon  deck  or  anywhere  else  and 
the  spray  covered  the  vessel,  while  the  whole  sea  was  as  white  as 
the  ground  after  a  day's  snow.  Indeed,  it  reminded  me  of  a  De 
cember  snow-storm,  when  the  wind  is  strong  enough  to  take  one's 
skin  off  and  cold  enough  to  shrivel  it  up  and  the  whole  air  thick 
with  cutting  atoms  and  the  whole  ground  restless  and  all  over 
white.  After  the  gales,  was  adverse  weather,  the  old  ship  pitching 
and  plunging  and  rolling  like — throw  an  egg-shell  into  the  next  pot 
of  beef  you  boil,  and  you  will  see  how — imagine  yourself  in  the  egg- 

90 


EUROPE 

shell,  and  you  will  feel  how !  Great  waves  tumbling — as  would 
seem  upon  you,  then  passing  like  an  ocean  of  oil  under — and  heav 
ing  you  up  from  the  seething  pool  that  growls  and  blackens  and 
whirls  with  an  awful  strength  and  depth  behind.  ...  I  was  not 
sick  at  all — I  lost  two  dinners — the  last  on  board,  owing  to  nausea 
excited  by  so  much  cooking  under  my  nostrils.  Aside  from  this 
was  well,  though  out  every  day  in  wet  and  spray,  and  walking  wet 
decks  in  thin  boots — and  more  than  all,  sleeping  in  a  berth  with 
the  water  oozing  upon  me  drop  by  drop  through  deck  of  vessel  in 
the  storms  off  the  coast.  .  .  . 

I  shall  go  down  to  London,  over  to  Manchester,  and  all  about 
soon.  First  I  mean  to  acquaint  myself  with  duties  devolving  on 
me.  Shall  also  this  winter  attend  lectures  from  scientific  men  two 
evenings  in  the  week  and  take  lessons  in  sketching,  architectural 
drawing,  and  French.  Office  hours  at  Consulate  are  from  10  to 
4  p.  M.  .  .  . 

I  shall  keep  no  copies  of  letters,  so  that  any  possible  future  use 
would  depend  on  preservation  of  copy. 

Mr.  White  had  received  his  appointment  to  the  Liverpool 
consulate  from  President  Tyler,  whose  administration  was 
nearing  its  end.  Even  before  reaching  Liverpool,  therefore, 
Donald's  chief  was  confronted  with  the  prospect  of  a  change 
of  national  administration  at  the*  November  election,  and  a 
consequent  uncertainty  of  consular  tenure.  Upon  reaching 
the  scene  of  their  labors  they  were  met  with  vexatious  delays 
in  preparing  to  take  over  the  affairs  of  an  office  that  had  evi 
dently  been  none  too  well  managed.  Donald's  letters  are 
full  of  details: 

(To  Gen.  Williams.  LIVERPOOL,  Nov.  i4th,  1844.) —  •  •  •  Mr. 
White  is  absent  in  London.  His  exequatur  (permit  from  Foreign 
Office)  had  not  arrived  up  to  Tuesday  night,  and  the  Queen  having 
taken  a  trip  to  Northampton  accompanied  by  the  Foreign  Minister 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

(Lord  Aberdeen),  Mr.  White  grew  somewhat  impatient  and  under 
advice  of  the  present  incumbent  of  the  office,  Mr.  Davy,  the  Consul 
for  Leeds,  he  left  for  London  on  Wednesday  morning.  My  stay 
here  during  his  absence  is  not  at  all  contrary  to  my  wishes,  the 
weather  being  exceedingly  dull  and  a  trip  during  session  of  Parlia 
ment  having  more  interest.  Moreover,  Mr.  W.  evidently  felt  a 
little  sorely  at  the  continued  expenses  and  the  delayed  prospect 
of  any  return,  which  would  have  made  it  embarrassing  to  me.  His 
exequatur  arrived  safely  this  morning,  he,  as  in  case  of  his  com 
mission,  passing  it  on  the  road.  .  .  . 

The  office  of  the  American  Consulate  is,  I  think  I  wrote  in  my 
last,  in  a  very  dismal  part  of  the  town,  and  itself  a  dingy,  dirty 
place.  And,  if  Mr.  Polk  is  elected  (at  the  time  I  write  he  either  is 
or  is  not),  I  shall  not  cease  importuning  Mr.  W.  to  consult  private 
comfort  and  the  reputation  of  the  country  in  a  speedy  removal. 
But  there's  the  rub  !  Is  Mr.  P.  elected  ?  At  this  very  moment — ^2 
past  u,  night  (J4  past  6  with  you) — I  fancy  you  looking  over  the 
returns  .  .  .  and  settling  with  yourself  the  question  of  Mr.  W's 
return  or  no. 

The  affairs  of  the  office  are  in  most  lamentable  condition. 
There  has  been  apparently  for  last  year  or  two  no  order,  no  system, 
no  neatness — nothing.  I  ask  for  Mr.  Maury's  correspondence  and 
nothing  is  known  of  it;  for  Mr.  Haggarty's  and  it  is  not  there;  for 
Mr.  Ogden's  and  a  parcel  of  books  with  entries  in  either  end,  topsy 
turvy,  are  shown,  which  far  enough  from  being  models  are  quite 
the  contrary.  The  same  is  true  of  every  record  of  the  office.  Be 
sides  Mr.  Davy  there  are  connected  with  the  office  a  Mr.  Pearce, 
who  has  held  his  situation  over  twenty  years  as  Vice  Consul;  a  Mr. 
Welding,  a  sort  of  general  clerk;  and  a  boy  for  fire-making  and 
errands.  The  office,  as  I  said,  is  small  .  .  .  the  front  windows 
looking  out  upon  the  grave-yard  of  St.  Nicholas'  Church,  from 
whence,  in  the  opening  of  a  grave,  there  must  of  course  arise  a 
most  disagreeable  effluvia.  .  .  . 

3  o'clock,  Friday.  I  have  just  returned  from  listening  to  the 

92 


EUROPE 

most  extraordinary  man  I  ever  met  with — Mr.  Hughes,  the  Charge 
at  The  Hague.  He  called  at  the  Consulate  office  in  hope  of  seeing 
Mr.  White,  who  has  not  yet  returned  from  London.  He  seems  to 
know  everyone  and  be  known  of  everyone,  telling  me  I  ought  to  be 
ashamed  of  myself  for  not  having  heard  of  him.  His  talk,  an  in 
cessant  stream  of  adventure  in  which  himself  was  the  hero,  but 
with  so  good  a  grace  that  one  could  not  impute  conceit.  I  surely 
never  laughed  louder  or  longer.  Of  Mr.  White  he  says,  "How 
long  has  he  been  here?"  "Nearly  a  fortnight."  "What  has  he 
been  doing?"  "Nothing."  "The  very  worst  thing  he  could  do. 
Tell  him,  the  first  day  after  his  return  to  call  upon  the  Mayor,  the 
President  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  &c.,  &c.,  or  they  will  set 
him  down  for  a  gawky  Yankee  who  is  not  half  humanized.  In 
fact,"  said  he,  "though  I  have  been  but  six  hours  in  the  place  I 
have  heard  hints  already  of  dissatisfaction  with  his  course." 

Between  ourselves,  the  hints  were  well  founded.  And  Mr.  W. 
is  better  fitted  for  the  business  than  for  the  etiquette  of  the  station. 
This  fact  more  than  any  other  makes  it  difficult  for  me  to  put  off 
my  usual  backwardness;  am  always  resolving  and  never  acting. 
And  am  sometimes  inclined  to  believe  that  ease  of  social  and 
worldly  intercourse  is  inbred  and  that  my  lack  of  it  cannot  be  sup 
plied.  Such  an  idea  has  always  forwarded  my  disposition  to  live 
upon  a  farm.  .  .  . 

1 6  Nov.  1844.  Mr.  W.  entered  upon  the  discharge  of  duties 
to-day,  having  returned  this  morning.  I  commenced  work  by 
writing  some  sixteen  letters  to  neighboring  consuls.  .  .  . 

(To  Mrs.  Goddard.  LIVERPOOL,  Nov.  I5th,  1844.) —  ...  At 
noon  I  saw  a  ...  Mr.  Hughes,  our  Charge  des  Affairs  at  The 
Hague — certainly  the  most  extraordinary  individual  it  has  ever 
been  my  fortune  to  meet.  His  conversation  was  one  torrent  of 
wit,  of  anecdote,  of  adventure.  His  manner  all  impudence,  care 
lessness,  and  drollery.  For  three  hours  he  held  Mr.  Davy  (the 
acting  Consul)  and  myself  in  a  roar  of  laughter,  or  sober  as  judges. 
"Do  you  know  me?"  were  his  first  words  to  me;  "what,  not  know 

93 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

me? — then  you  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself."  "Mind,"  said 
he,  when  he  left,  "don't  tell  your  friends  in  America  anything 
about  me.  I  don't  want  to  be  known  there.  .  .  ." 

And  how  do  I  and  how  have  I  spent  my  time,  you  ask,  while 
Mr.  W.  has  been  awaiting  his  authority  from  the  Queen,  who  at 
her  own  will  is  gadding  all  over  the  country.  Well,  I  have  been 
to  the  ancient  city  of  Chester.  Do  you  remember  about  the 
stout  old  constable  of  Chester  and  his  nephew  Damian?  If  not, 
read  over  next  rainy  day  The  Betrothed  again.  .  .  .  Then  I  have 
been  to  Wool  ton,  to  Wavertree  (see  Cultivator),  to  Aigburth,  &c., 
&c.  Visits  I  have  not  made — I  shall  never  make  a  visitor.  ...  It 
were  perhaps  as  well  not  to  speak  much  of  my  connection  with 
Mr.  W.,  as  it  is  uncertain  how  long  he  continues,  or  how  long  I 
shall  be  with  him.  I  shall  not  come  home  without  seeing  much  of 
England,  I  assure  you. 

(To  Mrs.  Goddard.  LIVERPOOL,  Nov.  2pth,  1844.) —  .  .  . 
Saturday  evening  last  I  dined  with  Mr.  Gair  of  the  first  mercantile 
house  in  Liverpool  (partner  of  the  Barings).  Met  there  some  half- 
dozen  of  American  captains,  &c.;  enjoyed  myself  therein  not  much, 
nor  suffered  at  all.  I  shall  be  driven  yet  to  talk,  spite  of  myself; 
which  reminds  me  of  Uncle  Henry  [Perkins],  to  whom  give  my 
kindest  remembrances.  It  is  pleasant  in  this  strange  land  to  bear 
in  mind  the  recollection  of  so  generous  a  heart  as  his  and  one  among 
the  very  few  which  I  should,  under  any  changes,  count  on  as 
friendly  to  me.  I  hope  he  will  bear  up  under  the  unlocked  for  and 
unhoped  for  success  of  Polk.  It  was  a  serious  surprise  this  side,  as 
well  as  the  other.  Mr.  White,  I  think,  little  expected  such  a  re 
sult.  "It  is  an  ill  wind  that  blows  nobody  any  good."  I  suppose 
Mr.  White  will  continue  here  and  the  opportunity  given  me  of  re 
maining  if  I  choose.  This  is,  however,  yet  in  futuro.  One  thing 
certainly — you  need  not  look  for  me  before  next  autumn. 

(To  Gen.  Williams.  LIVERPOOL,  Nov.  3Oth,  1844.) —  .  .  . 
Yesterday  by  the  Hibernia  was  received  .  .  .  confirmation  of  the 

94 


EUROPE 

election  of  Mr.  Polk  of  which  we  had  earlier  intelligence  by  the 
Great  Western.  It  is  matter  of  some  surprise  here,  even  of  disap 
pointment  (not,  however,  with  Mr.  White).  State  bond  holders 
are  much  chagrined  at  the  result,  and  the  ministerial  organs  are 
speaking  very  contemptuously  of  Mr.  P.,  looking  upon  his  election 
as  further  proof  of  the  spread  of  ultra  democratic  principles.  Nor 
are  importers  so  sanguine  of  easier  admission  of  their  goods  as 
would  have  been  supposed.  ...  I  suppose  there  can  be  no  doubt 
of  the  confirmation  of  Mr.  White. 

I  am  so  far  pleased  with  everything  connected  with  my  new 
duties,  which  are  really  very  trifling.  The  opportunities  for  ac 
quiring  information  having  any  connection  with  business  are  at 
every  hand.  I  only  fear  that  their  commonness  may  suggest 
neglect.  .  .  . 

Almost  immediately  the  rural  regions  of  England,  so 
greatly  in  contrast  with  the  baldness  of  what  he  had  been 
accustomed  to  in  America,  began  to  take  hold  upon  him. 
His  letters  to  the  Cultivator •,  of  Albany,  New  York,  bear  wit 
ness  to  the  strength  of  his  feeling.  "I  am  assured,"  he  wrote 
from  Liverpool,  January  4th,  1845,  "that  the  farm  houses  of 
Lancashire  compare  unfavorably  with  those  of  almost  any 
county  in  England.  Still  there  is  a  soberness,  a  quietness,  a 
tastefulness,  a  rurality,  and  a  home-look  about  nearly  all  I 
have  seen,  which  once  grafted  upon  the  country  houses  in 
America,  will  go  far  toward  making  our  landscape  equal  to 
English  in  beauty."  1  He  was  quick  to  see,  also,  that  the 
charm  was  a  result  of  the  beauty-loving  spirit  which  had 
been  inbred  and  had  become  a  second  nature  to  the  British; 
that  it  was  not  dependent  upon  means  or  leisure.  After 
watching  a  threshing  scene  in  mid-England,  he  sent  a  mes 
sage  to  the  husbandmen  of  America.  "Before  I  left,"  he 

lfThe  Cultivator  (April  1845),  120. 

95 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

wrote,  "the  threshers  suspended  labor  for  dinner;  and  what 
was  it  ?  Half  a  barley  loaf  and  a  bit  of  cheese  ! — this  eaten 
squat  upon  the  straw  and  moistened  with  a  jug  of  water  and 
cut  in  pieces  with  their  pocket  clasp-knives.  This  is  no  joke; 
it  was  their  dinner;  and  yet  a  stone's  throw  away  lay  the 
three  hundred  acre  park  for  old  oaks  to  fatten  on,  and  herds 
of  deer  to  dance  over,  and  scores  of  hares  to  trip  about,  and 
breed,  and  die  upon.  Let  our  farmers  and  farm  laborers 
thank  heaven  that  they  are  not  set  down  within  the  range  of 
such  odious  contrasts.  And  yet,  and  it  is  a  shame  to  every 
man  in  America  who  has  a  spot  of  land  and  a  soul — these 
same  laborers,  dining  on  barley  bread,  will  save  enough  of 
time  and  of  means  to  put  out  the  sweet  brier  at  their  cottage 
window,  to  train  the  ivy  up  their  chimney  side,  and  to  keep 
the  grass  green  and  velvety  at  their  door.  What  for  ?  Do 
you  say  what  for  ?  'Out  of  the  ground  made  the  Lord  God  to 
grow  every  tree  that  is  pleasant  to  the  sight* "  J 

Donald's  connection  with  the  consulate  was  of  short  dura 
tion.  The  fogs  and  damps  of  Liverpool  aggravated  his  al 
ready  weak  lungs  to  such  an  extent  that  he  was  compelled  to 
seek  a  milder  climate.  He  communicated  his  plans  and 
uncertainties  to  Gen.  Williams  in  a  letter  dated  December 
24th,  1844: 

The  contents  of  this  will  surprise  you,  but  I  hope  not  disturb 
you.  You  will  probably  have  received  before  this,  by  ship,  a  letter 
addressed  to  Louis  and  Alfred,  advising  you  of  my  having  taken 
cold  and  finding  it  difficult  to  rid  myself  of  a  cough  contracted  by  it. 
The  cough  has  continued  and  is  upon  me  now,  but  attended  by  no 
unfavorable  symptom  beside.  I  find  that  nearly  every  third  man 
here  is  troubled  in  the  same  way;  still,  considering  my  disposition 

irThe  Cultivator  (May  1845),  139.  Written  from  St.  Hiliers,  Island  of  Jersey, 
February  ist,  1845. 

96 


EURO  PE 

to  weakness  in  that  quarter,  and  after  having  consulted  a  physician 
here,  I  think  it  altogether  advisable  to  make  a  change  of  climate — 
the  physician  assuring  me  that  a  few  days'  sail  to  the  south,  by 
taking  me  out  of  the  region  of  these  everlasting  fogs  and  smoke, 
would  entirely  relieve  me.  Observe,  I  have  no  weakness  in  any 
way — am  as  strong — as  active — with  as  good  an  appetite  as  ever; 
but  fear  that  irritation  of  a  tender  organ  for  a  long  time  will  de 
range  it. 

My  next  quandary  has  been  which  way  to  turn  myself.  Mr. 
White,  not  having  news  of  his  confirmation,  was  unwilling  to  leave 
his  post  and  as  uncertain  as  myself  which  would  be  my  better 
course  of  procedure.  Once  I  thought  of  taking  ship  for  New  Or 
leans,  to  which  port  many  vessels  are  sailing  weekly  with  delightful 
weather,  following  the  trade  winds.  The  expense  would  be  £20 
passage  each  way  and  expenses  there;  but  my  great  objection  was 
that  I  should  from  the  length  of  the  passage  lose  the  entire  winter, 
whereas  by  taking  a  route  to  the  Mediterranean  I  should  have  the 
same  advantage  of  sea-air  united  with  opportunity  for  observa 
tion.  ...  I  have  tried  to  imagine  what  would  be  your  advice 
under  the  circumstances  and  much  regret  that  I  cannot  wait  to 
receive  it.  In  way  of  expenses  it  will  of  course  be  an  unexpected 
revulsion.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  The  weather  here  has  been  very  cold,  and  though  the  mer 
cury  has  not  ranged  so  low  as  with  us,  yet  I  find  the  air  much  more 
penetrating.  The  great  trouble,  however,  is  in  the  thickness  and 
the  smoke.  I  am  even  sometimes  disposed  to  think  that  to  be  rid 
of  them  would  be  to  rid  myself  of  lung  trouble;  still,  prefer  the  safer 
way  of  breathing  a  while  in  a  warmer  as  well  as  a  purer  atmosphere. 

Another  subject  I  must  not  omit  to  mention  to  you  which  will 
doubtless  no  less  surprise  you,  though  differently.  Shortly  after 
reaching  Liverpool,  upon  looking  over  the  list  of  U.  S.  Consuls  in 
the  various  ports  on  the  Continent,  Mr.  White  asked  me  in  a  half 
joking  way  how  I  should  like  such  and  such  consulates;  to  which  I 
replied  in  as  joking  a  way.  .  .  .  Since  that  time  and  especially 

97 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

since  my  cough  has  offered  to  drive  me  away,  Mr.  W.  has  frequently 
renewed  the  subject.  .  .  .  I  am  much  puzzled  as  to  what  is  proper 
action  under  the  circumstances.  With  regard  to  aptitude  for  the 
business,  if  none  other  should  occur  than  such  as  has  come  before 
this  Consulate  during  our  stay  thus  far,  I  should  feel  confidence  in 
myself  for  its  proper  transaction.  Still  I  should  be  sensible  that 
my  age  might  well  excite  demurral.  .  .  .  The  duties  here  have, 
it  is  true,  been  very  light;  for  my  part,  much  lighter  than  I  could 
have  desired.  So  far  as  my  own  improvement  is  concerned,  I 
know  not  what  to  think  of  the  proposal;  indeed,  it  would  depend 
very  much  on  the  port  where  might  be  the  offered  Consulate.  I 
have  no  doubt  but  under  such  responsibility  as  would  necessarily 
attach  to  such  appointment,  I  could  act  to  more  advantage  than 
where  no  responsibility  attached.  Somebody  has  remarked  that 
many  a  soldier  would  make  as  great  a  general  as  Washington,  if 
placed  in  the  same  circumstances.  High  responsibility  calls  out 
all  a  man's  resources  and  I  have  reached  that  time  of  life  when 
my  resources  ought  to  begin  to  develop — such  as  decision,  prompt 
ness,  prudence,  application  of  knowledge,  adaptation  of  action  to 
circumstance,  &c.,  &c.,  all  of  which  qualities  can  have  but  limited 
exercise  in  any  position  not  primary.  Still,  I  should  choose  to  feel 
more  confidence  in  the  result  of  my  actions  than  now,  and  there 
fore  should  prefer  returning  to  spend  the  summer  months  with  Mr. 
W.,  and  if  well  enough  the  next  winter — of  which,  indeed,  I  have 
no  fears — after  which,  if  there  could  be  found  a  berth  with  no  better 
claimant  in  some  good  port  along  the  Mediterranean,  or  even  in 
England — out  of  this  smoke  and  fog — which  would  pay  my  way 
fairly,  I  see  no  good  reason  now  for  not  taking  such  an  one.  I  sup 
pose,  however,  Mr.  W.  does  not  hope  for  so  much  influence  with 
the  incoming  President  as  with  Mr.  Tyler.  He  is  confident  of 
effecting  the  nomination  by  present  incumbent.  I  hope  you 
will  not  fail  to  give  me  your  views  on  this  subject  by  the  return 
steamer.  .  .  . 

Jan.  i.    To-morrow  begins  the  New  Year  and  to-morrow  I  shall 


EUROPE 

start  for  Guernsey  hoping  a  month's  run  upon  the  islands  in  its 
neighborhood  will  restore  me  fully.  I  have  rid  myself  of  my  cough, 
but  wish  a  little  extra  strength  to  ward  off  all  cold  and  wet  to 
come.  After  my  return  I  shall  either  take  fencing  lessons,  or  as 
you  advise,  horse-exercise.  .  .  . 

On  the  jd  of  January  1845,  Donald  began  his  journey 
southward  from  Liverpool.  However  much  he  disliked  its 
smoke  and  fog,  when  the  time  for  departure  came  he  left 
the  gray  city  with  a  pang  of  regret.  The  state  of  his  feelings 
may  be  gathered  from  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to  Mrs. 
Goddard  on  the  evening  of  New  Year's  Day.  "In  remem 
brance  of  your  frequent  kindnesses  to  me  the  past  year/' 
runs  the  letter,  "I  cannot  forbear  wishing  you  this  first  day, 
a  happy  new  one.  Happier  than  I  anticipate  myself — per 
haps  I  feel  unduly  despondent — but  a  little  ill-health  and 
this  continued,  dreadful,  foggy  weather  does  draw  down  one's 
spirits  wonderfully.  No  snow  yet,  but  wet  and  chills  and 
always  smoke — and  no  sun.  I  leave  it  to-morrow;  this  again 
causes  disquietude — to  leave  the  only  acquaintance  this  side 
and  pass  a  month  or  two  or  more  upon  the  bits  of  islands 
which  lie  off  the  coast  of  France  .  .  .  with  only  such  com 
munication  with  my  little  world  as  these  letters  afford,  is  a 
little  saddening.  My  present  intentions  are  to  pass  sufficient 
time  among  the  islands  to  see  them  wholly;  then  to  come  on 
to  the  coast  of  Devon,  and  weather  and  health  and  spirits 
permitting,  to  buy  me  there  a  little  pony  and  to  saunter  up 
to  this  county  again — partly  riding,  partly  walking — seeing 
all  my  eyes  and  impudence  will  admit  of.  This  looks  very 
pleasantly  on  paper,  but  not  so  richly  appear  my  views  of 
the  actuality;  viz.,  possible  sickness,  no  friend  to  care  for  me, 
or  hardly  hear  of  me.  .  .  ." 

99 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

Such  were  the  general  plans  with  which  he  set  forth. 
Doubtless  at  the  time  he  could  scarcely  have  analyzed  his 
own  feelings  and  motives  with  entire  accuracy.  He  had 
been  away  from  America  just  long  enough  to  feel  the  full 
strength  of  homesickness;  the  duties  at  the  consulate  were 
not  sufficient,  or  of  such  nature,  as  to  absorb  his  attention; 
and  in  consequence  he  had  developed  a  restlessness  that 
could  be  satisfied  only  by  action.  The  spirit  of  adventure 
was  upon  him;  the  green  fields  and  historic  shrines  of  Britain 
were  calling  to  him.  Without  knowing  it,  he  was  adopting 
just  the  proper  course  for  one  of  his  temperament  and  state 
of  health;  he  was  to  feed  his  mind  and  spirit  by  the  wayside 
and  to  restore  his  broken  health  in  the  soft  open  air  of  out 
door  England. 

He  was  well  equipped  for  the  journey.  He  was  widely 
read  in  English  history  and  literature,  topography  was  with 
him  a  hobby,  and  he  carried  as  keen  a  pair  of  Yankee  eyes 
as  ever  looked  upon  Europe.  He  had,  too,  the  spirit  of  the 
true  traveller,  and  in  this  antedated  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
by  many  years.  The  light  through  which  he  observed  was 
not  the  ordinary  light  of  every  day;  it  was  a  light  colored  by 
the  passion  and  romance  of  his  own  nature.  Where  others 
saw  only  things,  he  saw  things  lighted  up  by  memories, 
emotions,  and  hopes.  Nor  should  we  fail  to  remember  that 
despite  the  sorrows  through  which  he  had  passed,  he  was 
essentially  a  young  man  of  buoyant  spirit  with  a  hearty  sense 
of  humor.  The  reader  will  carry  away  a  wrong  conception 
if  he  does  not  grasp  at  once  the  fact  that  throughout  life 
Mr.  Mitchell  was  in  great  degree  a  humorist.  He  missed  no 
bit  of  fun.  His  bright  eyes  twinkled  with  merriment  and  on 
occasion  there  were  few  heartier  laughers.  This  play  of 
light  fancy  against  the  strong  background  of  his  predomi- 

100 


EUROPE 


nating  mood  of  deep  sentiment  and  pensive  reverie  must  be 
kept  clearly  in  mind.  It  is  a  key  to  the  understanding  of 
his  nature. 

Leisurely  by  rail  and  coach  he  proceeded  southward 
through  Birmingham,  Worcester,  Gloucester,  Bristol,  and 
Exeter  to  Plymouth.  In  each  place  he  remained  long  enough 
to  see  the  objects  of  immediate  interest.  He  knew  how  to 
depend  upon  himself,  and  his  knowledge  and  travel  sense 
enabled  him  to  do  so.  "Of  general  guide-books  which  cover 
the  whole  ground,  none  stands  pre-eminent,"  he  wrote  a  few 
months  later.  "Nothing  is  better  than  a  map  and  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  English  history.  These  two  together  will  open 
sights  to  a  man  with  eyes,  at  which  he  cannot  tire  of  looking, 
and  which  he  will  never  forget.  And  he  who  is  not  familiar 
with  the  great  epochs  of  English  history  and  the  localities  of 
their  evolutions  will  spend  a  few  days  economically  in  a  garret 
of  London  or  Liverpool,  sweating  with  Turner  or  Hume/'  1 
On  the  4th  of  January  he  attended  services  in  Gloucester 
cathedral  and  afterward  spent  an  hour  rambling  through  it 
and  observing  it  critically.  "No  cathedral  architecture  in 
England,"  he  observed  later,  "so  impressed  me  by  the  wealth 
and  variety  of  sharp-wrought  details.  There  is  a  bold  offence 
against  conventionalities  in  treatment,  which  is  admirable." 
The  beauties  of  Devonshire  entranced  him  and  at  the  little 
inn  of  Erme-bridge  in  the  vicinity  of  Ermington2  he  remained 

1  "Notes  by  the  Road,"  No.  i.    American  Review  (February  1846),  158. 

2  "How  I  wish  you  could  have  stopped  on  your  way  through  Devonshire  at 
Erme-bridge  near  to  Modbury,  a  beautiful  region  where  I  passed  a  fortnight  at  a 
country  inn  in  January  1845  luxuriating  in  wood  walks,  and  in  gooseberry  tart  with 
clotted  cream,  with  great  banks  of  splendid  laurestina  and  Spanish  laurels  piling  up 
in  heaps  under  my  window.    There  is  no  such  country  anywhere  as  in  England,  and 
nowhere  a  people  who  so  comprehend  all  that  can  and  ought  to  be  made  of  it." — D. 
G.  M.  in  letter  to  his  daughter  Elizabeth,  December  29th,  1882.    Mr.  Mitchell's 
memory  did  not  serve  him  accurately  as  to  the  length  of  his  stay. 

101 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

for  a  week,  enjoying  country  walks,  exploring  the  nooks  and 
crannies  of  the  neighborhood,  talking  with  the  countrymen, 
and  witnessing  the  preparations  of  a  troop  of  scarlet-coated, 
top-booted  fox-hunters.  Here,  too,  his  note-book  tells  us, 
he  met  and  conversed  with  an  original  of  Sam  Weller,  Sr., 
upon  questions  of  education,  government,  and  religion ! 
Erme-bridge  lives  in  the  pages  of  his  first  book,  as  do  many 
of  the  other  places  visited  by  him  during  this  first  period 
abroad.1  He  gave  eleven  days  to  this  stage  of  his  journey, 
arriving  in  Plymouth  the  evening  of  January  ijth. 

It  had  been  Donald's  original  intention  to  take  passage 
in  a  Torquay  steamer  for  Jersey;  indeed,  the  booking-agent 
at  Exeter  had  assured  him  he  would  be  in  time  for  the  sailing. 
Once  in  Torquay,  however,  he  found  that  no  steamer  ran  in 
the  winter  months,  nor  was  there  any  short  of  Southampton. 
Lacking  funds  sufficient  to  carry  him  to  Southampton,  he 
had  turned  from  the  thoroughfares  and  with  the  sweet  free 
dom  of  the  road  upon  him,  "  traveled  hopefully  "  and  leisurely 
to  Plymouth.  Here  he  engaged  passage  for  Jersey  in  the 
Zebra^  "a  little,  black,  one-masted  vessel" —known  and 
loved  by  every  admirer  of  Mr.  Mitchell — which  owes  its 
immortality  to  Donald's  description  of  its  perilous  sail  across 
the  English  Channel.2 

"On  Monday,  the  ijth,"  he  wrote  to  Gen.  Williams,  "I 
went  down  to  Plymouth  and  after  looking  about  it — specially 
at  its  wonderful  breakwater — set  sail  in  a  little,  one-masted 
cutter  for  Jersey.  Left  harbor  on  Tuesday  at  5  P.  M.,  and 
reached  Jersey  on  Friday,  at  i  P.  M.  !  Usual  passage  is 
twenty-eight  hours.  I  need  not  tell  you  we  had  exceeding 
rough  weather — not  so  good  accommodations  as  in  a  New 

1  Fresh  Gleanings,  8-11,  and  passim  for  the  two  years  of  travel. 

2  Every  one  should  read  this  description  in  Fresh  Gleanings,  14-24.     It  is  one  of 
Mr.  Mitchell's  most  spirited  narratives. 

102 


EUROPE 

London  fishing  smack.  ...  All  crowded  in  one  dirty  cabin 
where  the  sailors'  messes  were  cooked  and  no  vent  for  the 
smoke.  You  are  surprised  that  I  did  not  throw  myself  over 
board — doubtless;  but  I  had  not  strength  to  do  so,  so  exceed 
ing  sick  was  I  (it  must  be  confessed).  The  Atlantic,  and 
Atlantic  steamers  are  nothing  to  a  swell  in  the  English 
Channel  on  board  a  cutter  of  forty  tons.  I  feel  myself  a 
sailor  now.  But  it  is  over,  and  has  done  me  good.  My 
cough  has  left  me  and  has  left  me  in  doubt  whether  to  return 
and  try  again  northern  air,  or  spend  the  winter  out  here. 
Prudence  dictates  the  latter  course."  Mr.  Mitchell  used  to 
say  laughingly  that  from  the  day  he  set  foot  on  Jersey  soil 
his  lung-trouble  vanished;  that  all  seeds  of  disease  had  gone 
overboard  into  the  raging  channel !  It  is  certain  that  hence 
forward  his  health  improved;  and,  although  he  never  became 
a  man  of  robust  health,  he  was  active,  energetic,  and  very 
tenacious  of  life. 

The  day  after  his  arrival  he  found  lodging  at  La  Solitude, 
a  cottage  down  a  little  by-way  from  the  high  road  to  St. 
Savior's.  "The  very  first  time,"  he  wrote,  "that  I  swung 
open  the  green  gate  that  opens  on  the  by-way  and  brushed 
through  the  laurel  bushes  and  read  the  name  modestly 
written  over  the  door  and  under  the  arbor  that  was  flaunting 
in  the  dead  of  winter  with  rich  green  ivy  leaves,  my  heart 
yearned  toward  it  as  toward  a  home."  1  A  week  later,  with 
memories  of  Elmgrove  racing  through  his  mind,  he  sat  in 
his  room  writing  to  Mary  Goddard: 

(January  24th,  1845.) —  •  •  •  Yours  of  the  22d  [December 
1844]  is  by  me,  and  with  it  comes  so  strongly  revival  of  old  times — 
the  busy  importance  of  Alf;  the  noisy  laugh  issuing  from  under 

1  Fresh  Gleanings,  43. 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

that  little  sunbonnet;  the  pattering  feet  of  Henry;  the  wagging  tail 
and  earnest,  imploring  look  of  Carlo — that  I  must  needs  say  "How 
d'ye  do"  to  each  several  one  of  them  again,  not  excepting  yourself 
and  husband. 

Can  you  realize,  any  one  of  you,  that  4,000  miles  of  green  and 
blue — then  green  again — rock,  and  turbulent  ocean  is  swelling  be 
tween  that  old  Mumford  house  with  its  porch  and  long  back- 
chimney — and  I  daresay  snow-covered  roof — and  this  little,  snug, 
Norman  cottage  where  I  am  lolling  before  a  grate  full  of  coals  and 
watching  the  sun  streaming  brightly  down  into  my  neighbor's 
garden  upon  box-border  and  gravel  walks;  and  rich  looking  cauli 
flowers  thrusting  out  their  white  powdered  heads  fearlessly  into 
the  January  air;  and  fir  trees  and  bunches  of  American  laurel;  and 
beyond  it  a  bold,  bald  cliff  where  a  dozen  quarrymen  are  hammer 
ing  upon  its  sides — or  looking  from  the  other  window  down  upon 
the  roofs  and  spires  and  peaks  and  chimneys  of  the  little  city  of  St. 
Hiliers;  and  beyond  it,  and  casting  a  broad,  black  shadow  over 
its  further  half,  the  mammoth  pile  of  rock  upon  which  stand  out 
distinctly  the  bastions  and  curtains  of  Fort  Regent,  from  which 
every  morning  at  sunrise  a  gun  booms  over  the  town,  and  upon 
whose  highest  point — half-way  up  its  tall  flag-staff — the  signal 
ball  is  even  now  flying  which  says,  "Mail for  England  closes  to 
night"  Say — can  you  realize  it?  It  is  even  so.  There  are  play 
ful  fellows  in  the  streets  of  a  certain  height,  but  all  Philippes  or 
Louis — and  jabber  a  most  barbarous  language — and  there  are  Car 
los;  but  they  answer  to  the  French  of  "Come  here."  .  .  .  My 
health  is  much  better — cough  entirely  left  me.  .  .  . 

A  month  later  and  he  was  writing  again  to  Mary,  his 
thoughts  of  Elmgrove  still  glowing,  his  tastes  quickened  by 
the  scenes  amidst  which  he  was  living,  and  his  hopes  bright 
ening  toward  some  vague  future.  "I  have  seen  many  hun 
dred  rustic  seats  in  England,"  he  wrote  (February  2yth,  1845), 
"but  none  superior  to  yours  (upon  honor).  You  will  [eas]ily 

104 


EUROPE 

conceive  that  I  do  not  look  over  beautiful  places  and  pretty 
places  with  my  eyes  shut,  or  without  accumulating  hints 
which,  if  God  spares  my  life  and  health,  may  some  day  be 
illustrated  in  making  richer  some  nook  of  American  land 
scape."  And  then,  with  reference  to  some  praise  which  had 
been  pronounced  upon  one  of  the  letters  which  he  had  con 
tributed  to  the  Cultivator •,  he  resumed:  "I  shall  continue 
letters  in  Cultivator.  Those  for  May  and  June  you  may  find 
of  interest  as  covering  ground  recently  gone  over.  I  was 
much  pleased  with  the  character  of  Mr.  Chas.  Goddard's  re 
mark  upon  my  letter.  Nothing  seems  to  me  so  lacking  in 
ordinary  letters  from  England  as  the  neglect  of  those  minor 
features  which  make  up  the  peculiarity  of  the  new  scenes. 
What  I  want  is  to  give  those  who  read  the  letters  the  advan 
tage,  not  of  my  knowledge,  or  of  my  opinion,  or  the  opinion 
of  anyone  else;  but  of — my  eyes." 

Jersey  was  a  constant  delight  to  him.  He  spent  some 
thing  more  than  two  months  exploring  all  the  corners  of  the 
island,  studying  its  history,  improving  his  French  under  the 
direction  of  an  instructor,  and  outlining  the  months  of  travel 
for  the  future  which  was  gradually  shaping  its  course  for 
him.  The  mild  climate  proved  highly  beneficial.  His  mode 
of  daily  living  could  not  have  been  more  wisely  regulated 
for  one  in  his  state  of  health.  It  was  long  before  the  fresh- 
air  treatment  for  tuberculosis  was  appreciated,  yet  Donald 
was  daily  doing  for  himself  more  wisely  than  could  any  physi 
cian.  "A  frequent  walk  of  mine,"  runs  a  note  in  his  travel 
album  beneath  a  picture  of  the  beach,  "was  along  the  sands 
of  St.  Aubin's  Bay;  the  sand  firm  and  white  and  the  sea-air 
full  of  health."  It  was  the  beginning  of  a  fight  for  health 
that  was  to  end  in  victory. 

Even  in  this  beautiful  haven  he  had  further  testing  of 

105 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

soul.  Sorrow  still  pursued  him,  and  he  had  many  periods  of 
homesickness  and  depression  attendant  upon  uncertain 
health.  News  of  his  sister's  rapid  decline  was  reaching  him 
regularly.  On  the  29th  of  November,  from  Liverpool,  he 
had  written  to  Mrs.  Goddard:  "'What  shadows  we  are  and 
what  shadows  we  pursue/  Poor  Lucretia,  I  fear  I  may  never 
see  her  again."  To  Gen.  Williams,  on  the  2jd  of  January, 
he  wrote:  "I  am  pained  to  learn  of  Lucretia's  increased  ill 
ness.  But  I  fear  that  under  the  Providence  which  has  so 
inscrutably  attended  our  life  as  a  family,  we  must  be  pre 
pared  for  the  worst."  The  worst  was  not  long  in  coming; 
a  letter  from  Gen.  Williams,  received  on  the  i6th  of  February, 
conveyed  the  news  of  Lucretia's  death  on  January  i6th. 
"Your  last,"  replied  Donald,  "was  a  sad  letter,  and  I  can 
only  hope  regarding  its  most  melancholy  item  of  intelligence 
that  it  may  not  be  without  its  good  effects  upon  each  one  of 
the  three  who  make  up  the  remnant.  .  .  ."  To  Mrs.  God 
dard,  who  had  also  written  him,  he  replied:  "Your  kind 
though  sad  letter  of  January  reached  me  just  a  month  after 
the  death  of  dear  L.  I  was  in  some  measure  prepared  for  the 
tidings.  .  .  .  Yet  it  is  very  hard  to  make  myself  believe 
that  she  is  indeed  gone;  that  but  three  of  us  are  left  out  of 
such  a  family  !  Who  shall  be  next  ?  It  is  perhaps  foolish  to 
put  questions  on  paper,  that  everyone  puts  in  mind;  but  if  it 
be  I,  may  it  please  God  to  bestow  willingness  to  wait  His 
pleasure.  ...  I  am  much  obliged  by  your  kind  particu 
larity  of  description;  and  it  is  most  pleasant  to  know  that 
wishes  and  sympathies  could  not  add  to  or  detract  from  the 
quiet  of  her  death,  and  that  her  last  hours,  at  least  were  not 
passed  unattended  by  friends.  I  thank  you,  as  well  for  being 
there  as  for  communicating  everything  of  interest."  Death, 
which  had  until  now  beset  the  family  so  sorely,  was  not  again 
to  lay  finger  upon  it  for  thirty-six  years. 

1 06 


EUROPE 

At  length  his  residence  in  Jersey — protracted  from  day  to 
day  by  reason  of  the  late,  cold  spring — came  to  an  end.  On 
the  24th  of  March  he  bade  a  reluctant  farewell  to  La  Soli 
tude  and  sailed  by  steamer  for  Weymouth,  thence  making 
his  way  through  Dorchester  and  Salisbury  to  Winchester, 
where  on  the  2yth  he  found  a  letter  from  Mr.  White  summon 
ing  him  to  London.  In  London,  before  Mr.  White's  arrival, 
he  experienced  the  temporary  shortage  of  funds  and  had  the 
agonizing  search  for  his  belated  letter  which  he  has  so  humor 
ously  related  in  Seven  Stories.1  A  few  weeks  before,  Mr. 
White  had  apprised  him  of  the  appointment  of  a  new  consul; 
now  he  told  him  of  his  intention  to  return  home  and  of  his 
plan  to  sail  from  Liverpool  on  April  I9th.  By  this  time 
Donald  had  determined  to  continue  his  travels  in  Britain. 
On  the  ist  of  April  he  left  for  an  extended  journey,  proceed 
ing  partly  by  stage,  chiefly  on  foot.  From  Kenilworth  he 
wrote  to  Mrs.  Goddard  (April  loth,  1845): 

Here  I  am  in  sight  of  the  old  Castle:  it  is  five  o'clock  and  raining. 
I  have  walked  to-day  from  Stratford-on-Avon,  a  distance  of  four 
teen  miles — stepping  an  hour  or  two  at  Warwick  to  have  a  look  at 
its  famous  Castle  and  Park,  and  to  run  through  its  queer  old 
streets.  ...  It  is  raining  April  showers  and  has  been  for  hours. 
I  am  wet  and  drying  by  the  fire,  while  a  dinner  of  sole  and  chops  is 
getting  ready  for  me.  A  half-pint  of  sherry  I  have  ordered  to  warm 
me,  is  by  my  elbow,  and  I  stop  a  moment  to  drink  your  good  health. 
My  luggage  has  gone  down  by  railway — (I  only  carry  a  small 
portmanteau)  to  Coventry,  where  I  shall  be  to-morrow  night.  On 
Wednesday  (yesterday)  I  was  rambling  over  Stratford-on-Avon, 
chasing  out  the  old  walks  of  Shakespeare,  gossiping  with  the  old 
woman  who  shows  his  birthplace,  sauntering  in  the  church-yard, 
walking  out  to  his  Anne  Hathaway's  home,  &c.,  &c.  I  stopped 
at  the  Red  Horse;  had  the  room  Irving  occupied,  accidentally. 

1  See  pp.  12-22. 
107 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

Walked  to-day  through  the  Charlcote  Park,  the  old  seat  of  the 
Lucys,  where  Shakespeare  first  offended.  On  Tuesday  I  walked 
from  Chipping  Norton  to  Stratford,  distance  twenty-two  miles, 
between  breakfast  and  dinner;  the  previous  day  left  Woodstock, 
passing  by  Ditchley,  the  Lea  place,  by  Whichwood  Forest  and 
Charlbury  to  Chipping  Norton.  Sunday  passed  at  Woodstock;  on 
Saturday  was  at  Oxford — went  over  its  Halls  and  into  the  Bod 
leian  Library,  the  largest  in  England;  on  Friday  walked  from 
Streatley,  a  little  village  on  the  Thames,  to  Oxford,  distance  nine 
teen  miles.  On  Thursday  walked  from  Henley-on-Thames  through 
Reading  to  Streatley,  distance  twenty  miles;  on  Wednesday 
walked  from  Windsor  to  Henley. 

As  he  rambled  on  through  Derbyshire  he  was  impressed 
by  the  decay  of  the  inns  along  what  were  formerly  the  great 
coaching  highways.  Since  the  Liverpool  and  Manchester 
Railway  had  been  completed  only  sixteen  years  before,  he 
was  in  ample  time  to  observe  the  effects  of  the  new  upon  the 
old  modes  of  travel  during  this  transition  period.  One  of 
the  best  of  the  few  extended  descriptions  in  his  travel 
diaries  concerns  his  experience  at  one  of  these  inns: 

(April  1 4th,  1845.) — Besides  destroying  the  old  race  of  portly 
and  independent  coachmen  with  their  attachees  of  grooms  and 
porters  and  hangers-on,  the  swift  locomotion  of  the  present  day  has 
been  the  ruin  of  many  fine  old  inns  which  may  be  frequently  seen 
along  what  are  now  the  by-roads  of  travel  in  England,  their  shut 
doors  and  empty  and  noiseless  courts  telling  drearily  of  their  deser 
tion.  I  particularly  remember  on  coming  over  the  green  hills  in 
central  Derbyshire  out  of  that  most  beautiful  of  valleys — Dove 
Dale — the  quiet  loneliness  of  what  was  once  a  great  London  and 
Manchester  highway.  The  turf  was  creeping  more  and  more  over 
the  macadamed  road  and  had  already  made  green  all  the  wide  space 
between  the  walls  save  a  single  narrow  cart-track.  The  mile-stones 
of  iron,  showily  painted,  were  accumulating  great  blotches  of  rust; 

108 


EUROPE 

even  the  little  toll-house  had  an  antiquated  and  deserted  look,  and 
the  gate  hung  slouchingly,  half-open  and  half-shut.  A  drover  or 
two  going  with  their  herds  to  the  Derby  Fair  were  the  only  persons 
I  met  in  a  distance  of  six  or  seven  miles. 

At  the  end  of  a  long  plantation  of  larches  upon  a  high  hill  over 
looking  half  a  dozen  little  valleys,  I  came  upon  one  of  the  old  coach- 
inns.  It  stood  by  itself:  with  the  exception  of  one  or  two  clustered 
hamlets  in  the  valley  below,  there  was  no  house  in  sight.  Its  great 
stone  courts,  sweeping  around  the  paved  square,  were  open  to  the 
road.  The  doors  were  all  of  them  shut,  and  the  stone  pebbles  in  the 
court  were  nearly  all  encircled  with  a  green  turflet.  The  inn  itself, 
which  was  a  square,  large  mansion,  and  which  stood  just  far  enough 
back  from  the  roadside  to  allow  a  coach  and  four  to  be  driven  up 
in  dashing  style  between  it  and  the  door,  was  closed  at  every  point, 
and  was  dismally  silent.  I  did  not  even  see  a  dog  stirring.  The 
great  black  sign  which  was  still  hanging  between  the  front  windows 
was  so  rusted  and  weather-beaten  that  I  could  not  at  all  make  out 
its  burthen,  and  the  ivy  which  clambered  up  in  rich  style  from 
either  side  the  door  was  shaking  its  uncropt  branches  over  it.  ... 

A  mile  further  along  the  way  appeared  the  high  roofs  and  long 
line  of  outbuildings  belonging  to  a  now  silent  but  once  noisy  and 
bustling  claimant  of  traveler's  patronage.  It  had  even  more  pre 
tensions  to  grandeur,  now  unfortunately  exposing  it  the  more  to 
expressions  of  pity  and  regret.  Without  doubt,  they  had  some 
day  been  great  rivals.  .  .  .  But  the  bustle  once  attending  the 
arrival,  two  or  three  times  in  the  day,  of  the  London  coach  with 
its  crowded  top-load  .  .  .  live  now  only  in  ...  memories  .  .  . 
and  .  .  .  dreamy  fancies.  The  coach  is  put  on  some  ignoble  route 
in  a  suburban  neighborhood;  the  groom  has  found  a  place  in  the 
city  stables,  or  acquires  a  doubtful  livelihood  by  picking  up  a  few 
halfpence  as  coach-porter  about  some  town  inn.  The  coachman  is 
dead,  or  has  become  a  small  farmer,  or  yet  upon  the  box  growls  at 
the  dull  hacks  which  are  allowed  him,  and  mutters  curses  on  the 
rail[way]. 

109 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

...  It  was  the  middle  of  [the]  afternoon  when  I  came  up  with 
the  second  inn.  I  had  walked  over  the  hills  from  the  little  town 
of  Ashbourne,  in  the  forks  of  the  Dove,  that  morning,  and  .  .  . 
was  curious  to  learn  what  sort  of  hospitality  one  of  these  great 
old  houses  of  a  by-gone  time  might  afford,  in  its  present  abandon 
ment.  The  smoke  was  rolling  lazily  from  only  a  single  one  of  the 
many  chimney  tops  and  the  great  door  of  the  vestibule  to  which  I 
first  applied  was  fastened.  Opposite  was  another  through  which 
I  entered,  and  had  gone  half-way  down  the  great  bare  hall  when  a 
middle-aged  woman  appeared  at  its  lower  end  and  beckoning  me 
forward  showed  me  into  a  large  parlor  where,  to  my  surprise,  a  coal 
fire  was  burning  in  a  large  grate.  ...  It  was  by  no  means  an 
old-fashioned  house,  having  been  built  somewhere  between  1820 
and  '30,  when  coaching  was  at  its  highest  promise;  indeed,  had  it 
been  old,  its  decay  of  traffic  would  in  some  measure  be  associated 
with  its  age  and  so  bereave  it  of  that  peculiar  regard  which  seemed 
to  belong  to  it  as  the  monument  of  an  extinct  system.  The  high 
walls  and  ornamented  cornice  and  generous  casements  and  silken 
bell-pulls,  above  all  the  rich  blue  and  gilt  china  upon  the  table, 
bespoke  the  luxuries  of  the  present  age.  Two  or  three  heavy 
mahogany  tables  stood  about  the  room;  the  chairs  were  of  an  old 
style  and  stuffed,  with  hair-cloth  dressing.  ...  A  series  of  hunt 
ing  pictures  in  faded  gilt  frames  hung  about  the  room,  besides  one 
or  two  sporting  portraits  over  the  mantle.  It  was  just  one  of 
those  rooms  which  with  a  roistering  company  at  one  or  two  of  the 
tables,  and  a  chat  of  two  or  three  around  the  grate,  would  have 
been  one  of  the  most  cheerful  rooms  imaginable;  but  which,  alone, 
the  great  hall  silent,  all  still  above  and  around,  save  an  occasional 
footfall  of  the  solitary  maid  in  the  chambers,  or  the  harsh  wind 
shaking  the  casements,  was  fearfully  dismal. 

A  superannuated  old  gray-hound  came  in  with  the  waiter  and 
stretched  himself  composedly  on  the  rug  at  my  feet.  ...  I  had 
intended  only  a  stop  to  dine,  but  while  sitting  the  rain  began  to  fall 
and  soon  increased  to  a  storm.  I  was  obliged  to  content  myself 

no 


EUROPE 

with  an  old  newspaper  and  those  wandering  fancies  part  of  which 
are  here  set  down,  for  the  evening.  My  bed  was  hung  round  with 
heavy  red  curtains,  and  the  windows  similarly  attired — the  only 
ones,  as  I  saw  from  without,  which  retained  this  trace  of  their 
former  state. 

A  bit  of  broiled  ham  and  an  egg  at  eight  o'clock  of  a  morning 
as  dark  and  threatening  as  had  been  the  night.  As  I  looked  out 
of  the  window,  a  shepherd  in  his  gray  frock,  who  was  now  servi 
tor  in  place  of  groom,  was  driving  a  scanty  flock  of  a  dozen  ewes 
from  the  great  stable  court.  The  great  gates  were  thrown  down 
from  their  hinges,  and  a  few  hurdles  ranged  about  the  great  stable 
entrance  had  confined  the  little  flock  from  the  night's  storm.  The 
sovereign  I  offered  in  payment  had  to  be  sent  a  mile  away  to  be 
changed.  I  went  to  the  door  unattended  and  the  driving  currents 
in  the  great  building  almost  slammed  it  against  me.  Two  or  three 
times  I  turned  back  to  look  at  its  empty  windows  and  its  silent 
courts.  At  length  a  plantation  of  firs  and  pines  sighing  in  the 
wind  shut  it  from  my  sight.1 

Passing  on  by  way  of  Bakewell  and  Manchester  he 
reached  Liverpool  the  evening  of  the  i6th,  and  from  the 
Clayton  Arms  Hotel  despatched  a  letter  to  Gen.  Williams. 
"I  find  myself  in  Liverpool  at  length  and  waiting  for  Mr. 
White's  return  from  the  Continent,"  he  wrote.  "My  health 
is  very  good.  I  have  walked  something  over  one  hundred 
miles  the  fortnight  past  through  Berkshire,  Oxfordshire, 
Warwickshire,  and  parts  of  Derbyshire.  The  particulars  of 
my  route  I  have  communicated  to  Mrs.  Goddard.  ...  I 
keep  a  small  book  of  notes  such  as  I  can  carry  in  my  pocket, 
and  in  my  brief  method — making  a  single  word  the  exponent 
of  a  scene.  You  will  see  some  letters  of  mine  perhaps  in  the 
Commercial.  I  have  my  doubts  as  to  the  policy  of  such  news- 

1  See  Wet  Days  at  Edgewood,  225-230,  for  a  few  paragraphs  based  upon  this  entry, 

III 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

paper  writing  and  indeed  only  am  induced  in  the  hope  of 
giving  passing  gratification  to  friends  with  whom  I  cannot  so 
fully  communicate.  I  am  aware  some  would  have  a  pride 
in  abstaining,  though  capable  of  giving  far  more  interest  to 
such  letters;  yet  it  seems  to  me  a  foolish  pride.  .  .  ."  On 
the  1 9th  of  April  he  saw  Mr.  White  off  on  the  Hibernia  for 
America,  and  two  days  later  resumed  his  wanderings. 

May  6th,  1845,  saw  n^m  agam  m  London,  where  on 
the  1 5th  he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Goddard  from  149  Aldersgate 
Street.  "I  hardly  remember  where  my  last  was  dated,  dear 
Mary.  .  .  .  Since  then  I  have  been  through  Ireland  and  the 
south  of  Wales;  have  drunk  out  of  the  Giant's  Well  at  the 
great  Causeway;  slept  at  Armagh  and  Belfast;  attended  ser 
vice  in  a  Dublin  cathedral;  strolled  after  sunset  in  the  rich, 
wild  glens  of  the  county  of  Wicklow;  been  tossed  over  the 
Irish  Channel  and  into  the  bay  of  Bristol;  walked  under  the 
broken  walls  of  the  old  castle  of  Cardiff;  and  clambered  to 
the  tops  of  some  of  the  highest  of  the  Welsh  hills  .  .  .  and 
next  week  will  find  me  among  the  hills  and  streams  of  West 
moreland  and  the  week  after  amid  the  c  banks  and  braes '  of 
Scotland."  At  Wicklow  he  had  visited  the  Model  Farm; 
at  Armagh  he  had  spent  that  "wet  day  at  an  Irish  inn" 
which  lived  later  in  the  pages1  of  one  of  his  best  stories;  at 
Merthyr-Tydvil  he  went  through  the  iron-works.  His  diary 
record  of  the  coach  journey  to  Abergavenny  merits  a  place 
here: 

At  ten,  or  a  quarter  after,  the  coach  from  Swansea  comes 
rattling  up  in  the  rain.  ...  In  ten  minutes  more  the  fresh  horses 
are  on  and  the  Abergavenny  goers  crowding  in  the  shower  to 
the  top.  I  go  into  the  coach  office  .  .  .  and  put  my  name  down 

1  Seven  Stories,  43-72. 
112 


EUROPE 

for  an  inside.  The  back-seat  is  full — a  youngish  woman  with  a 
young  baby  in  her  arms;  beside  her  is  a  young  Welsh  girl  of  ten 
summers,  modest  and  pretty.  Presently  the  hat-box  which  had 
filled  the  vacancy  beside  me  and  which  I  had  anticipated  as  afford 
ing  the  most  agreeable  companionship  of  all,  gives  place  to  a  Mer- 
thyr's  granny  in  a  heavy  home-spun  cloak  and  black  bonnet  tied 
round  her  head  with  a  white  neck-cloth  spotted  with  crimson.  .  .  . 
At  length  the  whip  snapped,  the  old  lady  flung  herself  back  with 
an  Oh,  dear  !  and  the  coach  rattled  away  from  the  Castle  Inn  door 
where  the  stout  boots  stood  touching  his  cropped-crowned  hat  for 
a  parting  adieu.  .  .  . 

Unfortunately,  the  valley  beside  which  the  road  goes  up  to  the 
east  of  Wales,  and  all  its  sights,  are  the  opposite  side  of  the  way 
from  that  on  which  I  sit,  and  with  a  most  provoking  pertinacity 
the  old  woman  keeps  her  black  bonnet  bobbing  directly  between 
me  and  the  window.  A  cruel  but  effectual  expedient  occurs  to  me 
to  be  rid  of  the  annoyance.  By  opening  the  window  next  me,  I 
throw  such  a  draft  of  damp  air  upon  the  old  lady's  head  that  she 
is  fain  to  withdraw  it  into  the  corner  of  the  coach.  But  who  can 
reckon  on  a  woman's  submission?  She  asks  me  in  her  broken 
English  to  draw  up  the  glass.  It  is  easy  for  me  to  misunderstand 
and  reach  .  .  .  across  to  shut  the  opposite  window.  The  old  lady 
indeed  interposes  a  "nae,  nae,"  and  the  woman  with  the  baby 
giggles  and  the  little  maid  opposite  looks  very  willing  but  afraid 
to  laugh  outright.  I  sit  gazing  steadfastly  through  the  glass  upon 
the  enlarged  prospect  not  wholly  with  a  conscience  void  of  offence, 
yet  satisfied  that  the  end  justified  the  means.  .  .  . 

In  the  outskirts  of  one  of  these  little  villages  at  the  sign  of  the 
Colliers  Arms  we  leave  the  woman  with  the  babe.  Her  opposite 
neighbor  in  the  big  cloak  takes  the  vacant  seat  and  now  that  I 
have  closed  my  window  against  the  scudding  drops  of  rain  opens 
her  own  with  a  self-satisfied  smile  and  taking  from  the  basket  at 
her  feet  a  huge  loaf  of  cake,  a  bit  of  jack-knife  from  her  pocket 
which  she  opens  daintily,  she  proceeds  earnestly  with  her  dejeuner. 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

the  little  girl  looking  all  the  while  furtively  and  with  humorsome 
glances  at  me  upon  the  zeal  of  the  old  lady. 

Nor  can  I  forget  the  bright-eyed,  ruddy-cheeked  boy  in  a  tas- 
seled  cap  and  nice-lined  gown  over  his  blue  clothes  who  was  wait 
ing  for  this  little  Welsh  maid  at  the  Beaufort  Arms  in  the  beautiful 
valley  town  of  Clydarch.  I  lost  sight  of  her  as  she  stepped  out  of 
the  coach  and  the  groom  closed  the  door;  but  through  the  window 
I  could  see  the  arch  and  proud  look  of  the  boy  as  he  ran  his  eye 
restlessly  over  the  lookers-on,  or  suffered  it  to  rest,  as  seemed  to  me, 
upon  some  object  about  his  own  height,  with  a  most  intent  gaze, 
which  some  sudden  fancy  would  instantly  divert.  I  remember, 
too,  the  rich  suffusion  of  color  that  ran  over  his  face  as  he  once  or 
twice  caught  my  gaze  in  his  furtive  glance.  .  .  .  Presently  a 
pair  of  pattering  feet — two  pairs — walked  round  the  coach  and 
out  of  hearing.  .  .  . 

At  length  the  scene  grew  broader;  the  stream  flowed  leisurely 
under  wooded  banks;  the  hills  kept  back  and  divided  for  half  a 
dozen  little  dells — which  were  big  enough  to  be  valleys  in  Eng 
land — to  peep  out  upon  the  broad,  rich  basin  on  which  lay  spread 
like  a  map  the  lanes  and  enclosures  and  roofs  of  the  old  town  of 
Abergavenny.1 

"I  have  this  day  only  come  into  Scotland,"  he  wrote  to 
Gen.  Williams  on  May  3ist,  1845,  ^rom  Kelso.  "My  last 
was  dated  London,  which  place  I  left  on  Friday  a  week  ago. 
I  passed  through  the  counties  of  Essex,  Suffolk,  Cambridge, 
Lincoln,  York,  Durham,  and  Northumberland.  Sunday 
last  I  spent  in  Cambridge,  attending  service  in  King's  Col 
lege  Chapel,  the  finest  building  in  England.  At  Lincoln  I 
spent  half  a  day,  at  York  half  a  day,  and  was  at  Hull  on  my 
way."  On  the  same  day  he  wrote  enthusiastically  to  Mrs. 
Goddard:  "I  have  time  for  only  a  line.  Here  I  am  in  the 
midst  of  beauties  such  as  you  may  dream  of  if  you  read  Mar- 

1  C/.  "A  Ride  in  the  Rain."    Southern  Literary  Messenger  (April  1848),  209-211. 


EUROPE 

mion,  or  hear  the  '  Blue  Bonnets'  sung,  over  night.  One  way 
are  the  Cheviots,  blue  as  the  sky  that  kisses  them — another 
way  are  the  Eildon  hills  and  that  Sandy  Knowe  where 
Walter  Scott  spent  his  boy  days — just  by,  the  most  beauti 
ful  Tweed  is  murmuring  between  banks  prettier  than  the 
pictures  you  see  of  them;  then  there  is  Kelso  Abbey  and 
Roxburgh  Abbey  and  Melrose  and  Dryburgh  where  Sir 
Walter  lies,  and  Selkirk  and  Ettrick  and  the  Yarrow  all 
within  convenient  tramping  distance.  Yesterday  I  ate  my 
bread  and  cheese  and  soused  them  in  a  pint  of  home-brewed 
ale  within  sight  of  the  ruin  of  Norham  Castle  (Marmion)  and 
rode  in  the  coach  over  Twisel  Bridge— 

'  they  crossed 

The  Till  by  Twisel  Bridge. 
High  sight  it  is,  and  haughty.' 

(Marmion,  C[anto]  vi.)" 

From  Inverness,  whither  reverence  for  the  memory  of  his 
forebear,  Donald  Grant,  had  drawn  him,  he  wrote  to  Gen. 
Williams  on  the  i6th  of  June:  "Since  my  last  (from  Kelso,  I 
think)  I  have  visited  Edinburgh,  where  I  spent  three  days, 
Stirling,  Melrose,  Dalkeith,  Kinross,  Perth,  Dunkeld — 
which  place  I  left  for  this  on  Friday  last.  Thus  far  I  have 
accomplished  my  trip  in  good  health,  always  busied  with  new 
objects  and  meeting  with  no  mishap  or  loss — saving  on 
Thursday  last  the  taking  a  pound  less  than  I  ought  in  change 
and  not  discovering  my  error  until  fifty  miles  away.  ...  I 
miss  a  companion  sadly,  particularly  in  these  wild  districts 
of  the  North;  but  by  keeping  myself  busied  with  a  constant 
succession  of  new  objects  I  avoid  that  sense  of  loneliness 
which  would  otherwise  be  very  oppressive.  When  I  come 
again,  it  shall  be  with  a  companion  of  some  sort.  I  am  by 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

no  means  sure  that  improvement  of  opportunity  is  anything 
less  from  lack  of  company,  since  attention  which  might 
otherwise  be  devoted  to  conversation  or  remark  is  now  from 
very  necessity  given  to  constant  and  unremitting  observa 
tion.  I  think  I  could  safely  submit  to  examination  on  any 
point  connected  with  the  appearance,  situation,  climate, 
&c.,  &c.,  of  all  the  towns  yet  visited.  A  letter  from  my  uncle 
by  the  Hibernia  favors  a  long  stay,  primarily  on  the  ground 
of  health  and  secondarily  in  view  of  fuller  observation,  hint 
ing  that  such  observations  may  ensure  some  profit  by  publi 
cation.  I  am  not  so  sanguine  of  such  a  result.  With  few 
exceptions  the  literary  men  of  our  country  have  impoverished 
themselves  by  their  labors.  The  mere  reputation  of  being  a 
literary  man  I  by  no  means  desire.  To  be  among  the  fore 
most  of  such  is  indeed  worth  an  effort;  but  when  such  effort 
involves  what  it  does,  the  matter  is  debatable.  It  is  easy  for 
a  fool  to  empty  his  head  or  his  purse,  either  singly  or  to 
gether.  A  wise  man  only,  knows  how  to  keep  both  full. 
I  did  not  write  that  as  a  proverb,  but  I  think  it  will  stand 
stronger  tests  than  some  proverbs  that  are  in  the  mouths  of 
men.  ...  I  shall  make  it  an  object  to  see  the  ground  I  go 
over  thoroughly,  however  limited  my  stay  may  be.  If  I 
stay  a  winter  it  will  be  necessary  for  me  to  encroach  another 
thousand  upon  my  diminishing  property.  My  pride  will 
always  prevent  me  from  repairing  a  small  inheritance  by 
marriage,  unless  I  can  either  bring  a  reputation  or  a  profes 
sion  which  will  be  a  match  for  fortune.  It  will  require  time 
to  gain  either.  This  puts  a  home  for  me  far  into  the  future. 
The  weather  is  now  summer,  very  warm.  The  wildness  of 
the  Highlands  is  most  interesting  in  contrast  with  the  rich 
scenes  of  the  South.  There  are  many  Grants  here.  I  find 
yet  no  tidings  of  the  family  of  my  ancestry.  The  name  be- 

116 


EUROPE 

longs  to  a  Peer,  the  Earl  of  Seafield,  who  has  large  estates  a 
short  way  from  the  town.  It  is  the  name  also  of  a  Clan, 
and  I  shall  possess  myself  of  a  plaid  of  the  Clan,  who  have 
each  their  own." 

From  Inverness  he  turned  southward  by  way  of  the 
Caledonian  Canal,  visiting  Loch  Garry,  Fort  William,  the 
Scotch  lakes,  Dumbarton,  Glasgow,  Ayr,  Kilmarnock,  and 
Dumfries,  passing  into  England  again  through  Carlisle,  and 
spending  the  night  of  June  25th  at  Ireby.  He  was  now 
bound  for  the  English  lake  district.  The  next  day  he  rambled 
about  Keswick  and  toward  evening  turned  into  St.  John's 
vale  where  the  "grand  mountain  scenery,  the  waterfalls  in 
the  clefts  of  the  mountains,  the  lakes  and  tarns,  and  the 
wild  passes"  impressed  him  strongly.  Failing  to  secure 
shelter  at  a  lonely  little  hostelry  he  walked  on  in  the  gather 
ing  gloom  and  about  ten  o'clock  found  refuge  in  the  Swan 
Inn,  beloved  of  Wordsworth.  He  was  getting  close  to  the 
heart  of  rural  Britain  by  his  method  of  travel,  which  he  has 
himself  delineated  charmingly: 

At  night  you  wander  wearily  into  one  of  those  little,  close- 
nestled,  gray-thatched  country  villages  far  away  from  the  great 
lines  of  travel,  where  even  the  thunder  of  a  post-chaise  through  its 
single,  narrow  street  is  a  rare  event,  where  the  children  stop  their 
seeming  play  to  have  a  look  at  you,  and  rosy-faced  girls  peep  out 
from  behind  half-open  doors.  A  little  by  itself,  with  a  bench  each 
side  the  door,  is  the  inn  of  the  "Eagle  and  the  Falcon.".  .  .  Here, 
alone,  beside  a  brisk  fire  kindled  with  furze,  you  can  watch  the 
white  flame  leaping  lazily  through  the  black  lumps  of  coal,  and 
enjoy  the  best  fare.  .  .  .  Nor  is  the  fare  to  be  spurned.  The 
bread  may  not  be  as  white  as  in  the  shops  about  Whitehall;  but  it 
is  sweet,  and  the  butter  is  fresh  and  as  yellow  as  gold.  And  she 
[the  hostess]  will  cut  you  a  nice  rump-steak  to  broil,  and  put  you 

117 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

down  a  pot  of  potatoes,  and  half  a  head  of  a  savoy.  And  she  will 
scrape  a  little  horse-radish  to  dress  your  steak  with,  and  bring 
you  a  pitcher  of  foaming  "home-brewed."  And  if  it  be  in  the  time 
of  summer  berries  she  will  set  before  you,  afterward,  a  generous 
bowl  of  them  sprinkled  with  sugar,  and  cream  to  eat  upon  them; 
and  if  too  late  or  too  early  for  her  garden  stock,  she  bethinks  her 
self  of  some  little  pot  of  jelly  in  an  out  of  the  way  cupboard  of  the 
house,  and  setting  it  temptingly  in  her  prettiest  dish  she  coyly 
slips  it  upon  the  white  cloth  with  a  little  apology  that  it  is  not 
better  and  a  little  evident  satisfaction  that  it  is  so  good. 

After  a  dinner  that  the  walk,  the  cleanliness,  and  the  good  will 
of  the  hostess  have  made  more  enjoyable  than  any  one  in  your 
recollection,  you  may  sit  musing  before  the  glowing  fire  as  quiet 
as  the  cat  that  has  come  in  to  bear  you  company.  And  at  night 
you  have  sheets  as  fresh  as  the  air  of  the  mountains.  The  break 
fast  is  ready  when  you  wish  and  there  are  chops,  and  fresh  eggs, 
and  toast,  and  coffee.  For  all  this,  you  have  less  to  pay  than  a 
dinner  would  cost  in  town;  you  have  the  friendly  wishes  of  the 
good  woman  to  follow  you,  and  more  than  this  you  see  a  remnant 
of  the  simplicity  of  English  country  character.1 

June  2yth  he  went  on  by  Grasmere  to  Rydal  and  feasted 
his  eyes  at  last  upon  Rydal  Mount.  The  evening  he  spent 
rowing  upon  Windermere;  the  night  he  passed  at  the  Salu 
tation  Inn,  Ambleside.  Saturday,  the  28th,  he  viewed 
Windermere,  Grasmere,  and  Rydal,  and  looked  away  to 
Helvellyn  "in  sunshine  and  shade,"  from  the  vantage-point 
of  a  neighboring  hill,  with  Wordsworth's  lines  recurring  to 
him  throughout  the  day.  In  later  years  he  expanded  his 
brief  diary  entries: 

Here,  at  last,  I  was  to  come  into  near  presence  of  one  of  the 
living  magicians  of  English  verse — in  his  own  lair,  with  his  moun- 

1  "Notes  by  the  Road,"  No.  I,  American  Review  (February  1846),  154. 

n8 


EUROPE 

tains  and  his  lakes  around  him.  But  I  did  not  interview  him; 
no  thought  of  such  audacity  came  nigh  me;  there  was  more  modesty 
in  those  days  than  now.  Yet  it  has  occurred  to  me  since — with 
some  relentings — that  I  might  have  won  a  look  of  benediction 
from  the  old  man  of  seventy-five,  if  I  had  sought  his  door,  and  told 
him — as  I  might  truthfully  have  done — that  within  a  twelve 
month  of  their  issue  his  beautiful  sextette  of  Moxon  volumes  were 
lying,  thumb-worn,  on  my  desk  in  a  far-off  New  England  college- 
room;  and  that  within  the  month  I  had  wandered  up  the  valley 
of  the  Wye  with  his  Tintern  Abbey  pulsing  in  my  thought  more 
stirringly  than  the  ivy-leaves  that  wrapped  the  ruin;  and  that 
only  the  week  before  I  had  followed  lovingly  his  White  Doe  of 
Rylstone  along  the  picturesque  borders  of  Wharfdale  and  across 
the  grassy  glades  of  Bolton  Priory  and  among  the  splintered 
ledges 

"Where  Rylstone  Brook  with  Wharf  is  blended." 

Poets  love  to  know  that  they  have  laid  such  trail  for  even  the 
youngest  of  followers;  and  though  the  personal  benedictions  were 
missed,  I  did  go  around  next  morning — being  Sunday — to  the 
little  chapel  on  the  heights  of  Rydal  where  he  was  to  worship; 
and  from  my  seat  saw  him  enter;  knowing  him  on  the  instant;  tall 
(to  my  seeming),  erect,  yet  with  step  somewhat  shaky;  his  coat 
closely  buttoned;  his  air  serious  and  self-possessed;  his  features 
large,  mouth  almost  coarse;  hair  white  as  the  driven  snow,  fringing 
a  dome  of  baldness;  an  eye  with  a  dreamy  expression  in  it,  and 
seeming  to  look — beyond,  and  still  beyond.  He  carried,  too,  his 
serious  air  into  his  share  of  the  service  and  made  his  successive 
responses  of  "Good  Lord  deliver  us!"  and  "Amen!"  with  an 
emphasis  that  rung  throughout  the  little  chapel.1 

1  English  Lands,  Letters,  and  Kings,  3.302-304.  The  reader  may  care  to  have 
the  diary  entry  from  which  this  passage  is  derived:  "Sunday,  June  29th.  Attended 
Rydal  Chapel  in  the  morning.  .  .  .  Commencement  of  service.  Entrance  of 
Wordsworth;  corner  seat;  dress;  eye;  general  manner;  uttering  of  responses."  In 
the  English  Lands  account  of  the  visit  to  the  Wordsworth  country  there  is  a  slight 
confusion  of  dates. 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

From  the  lake  district  he  returned  by  way  of  Kendal, 
Bolton  Abbey,  Harrogate,  Sheffield,  Northampton,  Weston, 
Newport  Pagnell,  and  St.  Albans  to  London,  whither  he 
arrived  July  5th.  After  five  days  in  London  he  went  through 
Gosport  and  Portsmouth  to  the  Isle  of  Wight,  where  he  en 
joyed  four  delightful  days.  While  on  the  island  he  read  Legh 
Richmond's  story  of  The  Dairyman's  Daughter,  and  visited 
her  home  near  Arreton.  "One's  highest  conception  of  a 
rural  cottage  derived  from  English  poetry  .  .  .  could  not 
find  better  actual  embodiment  than  in  the  Dairyman's  Cot 
tage,"  he  wrote  in  his  diary,  July  i4th.  "There  was  the  .  .  . 
Bible  with  her  name  in  her  own  hand,  and  her  prayer-book, 
and  at  the  window  the  tree  of  her  planting;  there  was  the 
visiting  book  with  names  from  every  Christian  nation.  How 
very  strange !  Here  was  a  poor  woman  in  a  poor  cottage, 
with  scarce  any  education  and  no  beauty,  with  nothing 
about  her  to  be  envied  but  her  hope;  yet  the  story  of  that 
hope  and  its  reason  and  strength  not  eloquently  but  truly 
told  has  drawn  hundreds  to  look  at  the  familiar  things  of 
her  life;  to  look  at  her  Bible,  to  see  where  she  sat,  where  she 
sickened,  where  she  died.  Doesn't  it  speak  poorly  for  the 
prevalence  of  Christian  hope  when  a  single  instance  in  one 
away  from  the  temptations  of  the  world,  is  the  world's 
wonder  ?" 

Having  now  completed  his  first  journeyings  in  the  British 
Isles,  he  was  ready  for  the  Continent.  An  interesting  letter 
to  his  uncle,  Walter  Mitchell,  of  Hartford,  Connecticut, 
written  before  departure  from  the  Isle  of  Wight  (undated, 
but  evidently  written  July  i4th,  1845),  an<^  a  letter  to  the 
Cultivator  summarize  the  recent  travel: 

.  .  .  Since  my  last  to  you  I  have  been  through  England  on 
four  different  routes  and  have  gone  through  most  of  Scotland  and 

120 


EUROPE 

Ireland.  .  .  .  Through  three  of  the  English  counties  I  traveled 
on  foot  and  through  all  have  gone  leisurely  so  that  my  observation 
has  been  thorough  and  widely  extended.  I  have  visited  all  the 
places  of  interest  in  or  near  the  chief  cities,  been  through  every 
English  cathedral  of  note,  visited  baronial  residences  and  modern 
palaces,  and  had  picture  views  from  the  splendid  collections  of 
royalty  and  dukes  to  the  colored  lithographs  upon  the  ward  rooms 
of  a  Greenwich  hospital.  I  have  heard  speeches  from  Lords 
Brougham,  Stanley,  Campbell,  and  Lyndhurst;  and  have  talked 
by  the  half  hour  with  a  farm  laborer  over  a  hedge  in  the  beautiful 
county  of  Westmoreland.  I  have  drunk  out  of  the  Giant's  Well 
at  the  Causeway  and  treated  a  serjeant  of  the  guard  to  a  stoup  of 
ale  in  the  vaults  of  Edinburgh  Castle;  but  am  not  yet  seduced  out 
of  regard  to  the  steady  habits  of  home,  nor  have  lost  the  love  of 
that  home.  Nay,  I  am  at  times  thoroughly  homesick  and  look 
westward  with  many  fond  longings,  which  the  prospect  of  a  winter's 
stay  in  Italy  would  nowise  tend  to  diminish.  The  truth  is,  it  is  no 
small  matter  to  be  alone  some  thousands  of  miles  away  from  any 
face — among  millions  of  faces — that  you  know.  In  the  cities  this 
sense  of  loneliness  is  most  oppressive,  and  may  drive  me  to  a 
quicker  return  than  I  wish. 

I  was  very  sorry  to  find  in  your  letter  no  mention  of  family 
history,  by  aid  of  which  I  might  pursue  inquiry  at  Inverness. 
There  are  many  Grants  in  the  neighborhood — two  of  them  in  the 
Peerage — the  Earl  of  Seafield  and  Lord  Glenelg.  It  is  the  name 
of  one  of  the  great  northern  clans;  the  motto,  "Stand  fast."  I 
purchased  a  piece  of  the  Grant  plaid  and,  if  my  funds  will  permit 
the  outlay,  shall  order  a  full  Highland  suit  of  the  Grant  tartan 
before  returning. 

Of  a  proposed  stay  for  the  winter,  you  speak  chiefly  as  regards 
health — certainly  the  great  consideration;  yet  one  in  respect  of 
which  there  exists  such  difference  of  opinion,  even  among  medical 
men,  that  perhaps — with  proper  avoidance  of  exposure — accident 
is  as  safe  a  guide  as  the  dicta  of  anyone.  Still  your  views  will  be 

121 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

kept  in  mind  and  I  shall  consult  a  physician  at  Paris  as  suggested. 
If  I  can  meet  with  any  agreeable  companion  or  party — American 
or  English — with  whom  I  can  establish  intercourse  to  continue  for 
the  winter,  I  shall  in  all  probability  remain;  if  not  fortunate  in 
meeting  with  some  one  to  relieve  the  tedium  of  a  winter's  residence, 
I  shall  return.  My  means  pecuniarily  are  the  products  of  a  capi 
tal  of  about  $10,000,  which  by  my  present  stay  is  reduced  to  $9,000, 
and  if  I  stay  the  winter  will  be  reduced  to  $8,000.  ...  I  am  now 
ready  for  La  Belle  France,  for  which  I  leave  two  days  hence.  .  .  . 

My  observation  extended  over  nearly  all  England — only  two 
counties,  Shropshire  and  Norfolk,  were  unvisited.  Through  Berk 
shire,  Oxfordshire,  Warwickshire,  Cumberland,  Westmoreland,  and 
a  large  part  of  Derbyshire,  and  Berwickshire  (in  Scotland),  I 
strolled  on  foot.  During  this  pedestrian  range  of  over  three  hun 
dred  miles,  I  took  frequent  occasions  to  visit  the  farm  houses  and 
laborers'  cottages  along  the  way;  have  observed  as  closely  as  cir 
cumstances  admitted,  the  habits  of  the  industrial  portions  of  the 
population,  have  conversed  with  them  at  their  simple  homes  and 
in  the  fields,  and  not  unfrequently  have  made  trial  of  their  imple 
ments  of  husbandry,  beside  them.  Two  or  three  bouts  round  a 
field  in  South  Devon,  I  remember  going,  with  my  hands  to  the 
stilts  of  a  crazier  plow  than  I  ever  saw  in  the  most  retired  districts 
of  New  England.  Only  a  month  since,  I  wearied  myself  to  ex 
haustion  with  one  of  the  heavy  Cumberland  scythes  which,  though 
exceedingly  clumsy  and  ill  fitted  in  every  other  respect,  are  of  the 
best  tempered  metal  and  retain  a  fine  edge.  The  mower  was  at 
first  unwilling  to  trust  his  scythe  in  my  hands;  but  after  promising 
him  a  six-pence,  pour  boirey  he  willingly  granted  the  favor  and  ad 
mitted  the  work  to  be  very  fairly  done.1 

On  the  1 6th  of  July  he  sailed  for  Havre,  visited  Rouen  on 
the  lyth,  and  reached  Paris  the  night  of  the  i8th,  staying  at 
the  Hotel  Meurice.  The  transition  to  a  country  of  foreign 

JThe  Cultivator  (October  1845),  300.     Written  from  Paris,  August  1845. 

122 


EUROPE 

tongue  was  doubtless  none  too  easy.  In  his  diary  the  entry 
for  Saturday,  July  I9th,  begins  with  the  words  "Despon 
dency,  homesick,  and  loneliness."  A  fortunate  meeting  with 
two  of  his  Yale  classmates  on  the  same  day  enabled  him  to 
shake  off  his  black  mood.  After  a  few  days  he  secured  lodg 
ing  at  55  Rue  Neuve  St.  Augustin,  and  remained  in  Paris 
until  August  2jd.  One  of  the  most  charming  and  charac 
teristic  letters  of  this  entire  period  of  foreign  travel  he  wrote 
from  his  little  eyrie  on  the  fourth  story  of  the  Maison 
Leppine  to  Mrs.  Goddard: 

(August  ist,  1845.) — I  was  thinking  this  morning,  Mary,  as  I 
finished  dressing  and  drew  together  the  curtains  which  hide  my 
little  bed  in  a  niche  of  the  wall  and  put  on  my  hat  and  took  a  look 
into  the  long  mirror  over  the  little  marble  fireplace,  how  much  I 
should  like  to  stroll  down  on  such  an  August  morning  into  the 
avenue  of  old  elms  that  stand  round  your  door,  brushing  the  dew 
away  from  the  short  grass,  tramping  under  the  honeysuckles  that 
blossom  in  your  piazza,  and  through  the  grass  again  and  between 
the  syringa  bushes  into  the  well  trimmed  or  the  weedy  garden  (it 
would  matter  little  which),  and  sit  down  on  the  stone  step  to  the 
summer  house,  and  look  and  muse,  and  muse  and  look.  Be  sure 
the  thought  of  this  does  not  come  to  me  without  accompanying 
thoughts  of  some  rosy  faces  and  some  that  are  not  rosy;  of  kind 
words  and  none  that  are  not  kind;  of  pattering  feet  to  tread  along 
with  me;  and  along  with  them  a  bushy-haired,  red-tongued,  pant 
ing  dog. 

Well,  here  I  am  in  a  Parisian  house,  living  as  the  Parisians  live. 
In  Scotland  I  drank  Scotch  ale;  in  Ireland,  Dublin  stout;  in  Lon 
don,  porter;  and  now  I  drink  red  and  white  wine  and  dine  at  the 
restaurants.  My  room  is  a  bedroom,  though  the  curtains  hide  it. 
Here  is  a  fine  mahogany  desk  on  which  I  write;  yonder  a  table,  a 
sofa,  an  easy  chair,  and  the  floor  is  of  waxed  oak.  Out  of  the  win 
dow  I  look  into  the  court  with  its  range  of  buildings  around,  and 

123 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

over  their  tops  and  down  the  street  the  high  fronts  of  the  opposite 
houses  on  every  floor  of  which  lives  a  family.  Out  of  the  windows 
in  the  ridge  of  the  roof  an  old  woman  has  just  hung  her  dishcloths 
to  drip  in  the  next  tier;  yet  upon  the  roof  a  woman  is  brushing 
shoes.  Farther  below,  an  old  lady,  more  respectably  accounted, 
just  now  opened  the  blinds  to  water  some  plants  that  live  in  a  very, 
very  narrow  bacony.  Next  below  us,  no  one  is  yet  stirring  and 
below  farther  the  buildings  hide.  I  have  just  tinkled  my  little  bell 
out  at  the  window  which  is  an  intimation  that  I  am  ready  for 
breakfast.  In  five  minutes  the  servant  will  bring  a  tray  with 
butter,  two  eggs  boiled,  milk,  coffee,  and  the  best  bread  you  ever 
saw.  This  is  a  French  breakfast  excepting  the  eggs  which  I  have 
had  the  extravagance  to  add,  bringing  my  charge  for  dejeuner  up 
to  one  franc  and  a  half.  For  dinner  I  wander  away  either  to  the 
Palais  Royal  where  I  have  my  bowl  of  soup,  three  dishes  of  meat, 
tart,  dessert,  and  bottle  of  wine  for  two  francs;  or  to  the  English 
roast-beef  houses  where  I  revive  the  recollections  of  the  rich  din 
ners  of  Britain  over  beef,  ale,  and  cheese.  In  the  evening  I  wander 
down  into  the  Tuileries  gardens  and  sit  for  an  half  hour  watching 
the  moving  millions  under  the  shadows  of  the  heavy  avenues,  or 
look  at  the  water  sparkling  from  the  fountains  under  the  light  of 
a  thousand  lamps,  and  grow  very  poetic  until  the  drums  of  a  corps 
of  soldiers  give  warning  of  the  gates'  closing,  when  I  ramble  on  to 
the  Place  de  la  Concorde  and  stand  with  my  arms  folded  under  the 
column  of  Luxor  and  look  upon  new  fountains  and  new  thousands 
and  listen  to  ten  thousand  sounds,  or  walk  on  pushing  my  way 
through  the  throng  that  gathers  in  the  Champs  Elysees  every 
night  in  the  year  to  hear  such  noises  and  to  see  such  sights  as  make 
one  seem  in  dream-land. 

Two  days  since  was  the  great  day  of  the  Fete — the  last  of  the 
Three  Days  of  July.  You  can  form  no  idea  of  the  multitudes. 
Imagine  some  three  or  four  hundred  thousand  always  moving — 
for  the  French  can  never  stand  still — and  always  together,  women, 
children,  dogs,  soldiers,  and  mounted  guards:  the  fun  being  every 

124 


EUROPE 

year  paid  for  by  the  deaths  of  some  half  dozen  who  are  crushed  in 
the  crowd.  The  great  show  of  the  day,  amid  innumerable  lesser 
ones,  was  the  fireworks  of  the  evening,  accompanied  with  a  con 
tinuous  roar  of  cannon  firing  from  the  Hotel  des  Invalides,  the 
home  of  the  old  soldiers  of  France.  I  could  tell  you  about  red, 
dusky  balls  of  fire  shooting  up  some  three  hundred  feet  in  the  air, 
then  bursting  with  the  sound  of  a  musket  and  sending  a  shower  of 
white  globules  of  fire  all  over  the  sky,  lighting  up  the  fountains 
and  statues  and  men's  faces  and  colonnades,  like  day.  I  could  tell 
you  of  four  or  five  in  different  parts  of  the  heavens  bursting  together 
and  making  the  illuminated  columns  and  arches,  and  even  the 
moon  and  stars  as  pale  as  sickness;  and  could  tell  you  of  ten  thou 
sand  rockets  streaming  from  every  quarter,  not  dying  dully  but 
vanishing  in  a  light  explosion  that  sends  out  green  and  golden  and 
crimson  stars  that  float  upon  the  night  air  in  waves  and  finally  go 
out  of  sight  amid  the  great  wreaths  of  smoke  from  the  cannon;  and 
of  beautiful  little  gondolas  with  crimson  streamers,  floating  on  the 
Seine,  which  suddenly  would  burst  in  pieces  and  send  up  showers  of 
colored  light  which,  beautiful  as  it  was  in  the  sky,  could  not  com 
pare  with  the  reflection  on  the  waters.  Then  there  was  a  mimic 
volcano  that  spouted  for  ten  minutes  hideous  torrents  of  flame 
and  smoke  half  over  the  heavens  and  covered  with  its  lurid 

glare the  whole.     I  say  if  I  were  to  try  and  describe  such 

things  they  would  not  give  you  any  idea  of  what  hardly  seems  a 
reality. 

But  a  fig  for  such  letter  writing !  You  ask  for  description. 
Pray,  do  you  know  what  a  silly  request  you  make?  Suppose  I 
were  to  count  you  the  statues  in  the  garden  of  the  Tuileries  and 
tell  you  how  many  naiads  are  heaving  water  out  of  marble  urns  and 
how  many  giants  are  wrestling  upon  the  tops  of  pedestals  and  how 
long  an  avenue  of  lime  trees  stretches  as  far  as  you  can  see  from 
the  Triumphal  Arch  down  to  the  Palace  and  how  the  other  night 
the  whole  two  miles  of  distance  was  blazing  on  either  side  with 
innumerable  lamps  that  glittered  among  the  leaves  and  how  the 

125 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

windows  of  the  Palace  were  each  one  of  them  a  broad  sheet  of  flame 
and  how  belts  of  lightning  were  braided  round  the  huge  entablature 
of  the  Arc  de  1'Etoile  and  how  from  either  extremity  of  this  distance 
rockets  would  flame  into  the  sky  and  meeting  midway  just  over 
the  obelisk  of  Luxor  drop  glittering  spangles  of  green  and  gold — 
pray,  would  you  not  tire  of  it? 

Whom  should  I  meet  the  other  day — my  second  day  in  Paris — 
but  two  classmates,  one  of  whom  I  thought  safe  on  his  tobacco 
plantation  in  Virginia  and  the  other  immured  in  the  hospital  at 
Boston.  Yet  here  they  are,  and  so  I  meet  them  everywhere — 
Americans,  I  mean — who,  if  not  old  acquaintances,  yet  we  touch 
hands  from  knowing  common  friends.  ...  I  shall  stop  in  La 
belle  France  till  I  know  so  much  of  the  language  as  to  keep  my  own 
money  in  my  pocket,  which  at  present  is  not  easy.  Expenses  of 
living  here  are  comparatively  small.  I  pay  for  room,  boot-clean 
ing,  &c.,  fifteen  francs  a  week  ($3);  a  franc  and  a  half  for  breakfast, 
three  francs  for  dinner,  making  some  |io  per  week.  By  the  by, 
you  must  manage  to  find  some  thin  paper  for  letters,  since  coming 
to  me  in  the  interior  of  Europe  there  will  be  a  difference  of  $i  be 
tween  thick  paper  and  thin  on  a  single  letter.  Also  please  give 
them  for  enclosure  with  Gen.  Williams'. 

.  .  .  You  and  Uncle  Walter  will  like  my  determination  [to 
remain  through  the  winter];  it  will  lessen  pecuniary  resources  very 
much:  in  every  other  respect  I  anticipate  improvement.  You  know 
my  backward  state  in  everything  that  regards  social  intercourse 
and  must  see  there  will  be  more  hope  of  reform  in  longer  travel  than 
in  shutting  myself  up  at  home  again. 

...  I  have  written  several  letters  for  the  Commercial — all  of 
them  political  except  one.  Have  you  seen  them?  I  have  not 
yet  seen  the  shows  proper  of  Paris,  but  reserve  the  pleasure  until 
I  talk  somewhat.  Nothing  in  speaking  is  so  difficult  to  overcome 
as  fear  of  being  wrong;  however,  I  see  some  little  children  in  the 
court  below  whom  I  want  to  toll  up  to  my  room  with  some  candy 
that  lies  in  my  drawer  and  make  them  my  teachers.  How  come 

126 


EUROPE 

Alfred  and  Julia  on  with  their  writing  and  does  Alfred  learn  to 
swim  these  July  days  and  is  the  hole  under  the  maple  deep  as  ever 
and  are  they  through  with  haying  in  the  valley  and  are  huckle 
berries  ripe  and  are  the  larks  plenty  in  the  meadows  and  is  my  gun 
growing  rusty  and  do  the  robins  eat  the  currants  and  have  you 
green  corn  yet  and  new  potatoes  and  are  the  early  apples  ripening 
and  do  the  thunder  showers  come  over  the  hill  as  they  used  to  do 
and  does  the  sun  come  out  and  make  things  look  as  pretty  and 
bright  and  the  robins  sing  and  the  crickets  hop  and  the  swallows 
twitter  and  the  leaves  glisten  and  the  flowers  smell  sweet  as  they 
all  used  to  do?  Here  is  a  parcel  of  questions  for  Alfred  to  answer; 
and  you  see  that  though  in  the  most  city-like  of  cities,  I  have  not 
forgotten  what  makes  pleasant  country  life,  and  it  is  no  secret 
that  my  heart  yearns,  and  has  ever,  among  all  the  wonders  of  art 
for  that  which  art  cannot  make. 

Is  Mrs  G[oddard]  with  you  ?  My  regards  to  her,  if  so.  She 
must  look  me  out  a  wife,  or  does  she  still  think  (half  right)  that  I 
ought  never  to  marry?  What  does  Norwich  look  like  now?  Are 
the  churches  done?  Elegant,  are  they  not?  the  whole  of  both  of 
which  jammed  together  could  be  put  through  some  windows  I 
have  seen,  without  raising  the  window-frames;  and  as  for  the  tow 
ers,  why  they  would  make  a  very  considerable  bit  of  scaffolding 
from  the  which  to  clean  the  sculpture  within  the  aisles  of  Notre 
Dame.  As  for  your  bit  of  meeting-house,  it  would  make  a  martin 
box  to  put  out  upon  the  tower  of  Rouen  cathedral,  where,  however, 
people  in  the  street  below  could  not  distinguish  it  from  the  old 
turrets,  unless  by  the  color.  But  I  say  so  much  only  to  give  you 
some  idea  of  what  an  old  world  this  is,  and  I  testify  to  my  patri 
otism  by  putting  at  the  end  of  this  jargon  a  Hurrah  for  New  Eng 
land  ! 

.  .  .  Remember  me  to  your  father.  I  shall  have  strange 
things  to  tell  him  of  whenever  I  sit  down  under  the  piazza,  with  him 
again.  But  this  world  is  a  changing  one — who  knows  we  shall 
meet,  or  if  meeting,  shall  meet  there?  Mary,  when  I  look  back 

127 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

ten  years  it  is  always  with  a  sigh  and  a  rising  tear,  and  if  I  ever 
smile  in  looking  forward  the  same  time,  it  is  a  poor,  sickly,  forced 
smile. 

Remember  me  to  Uncle  Perkins,  to  friends  in  New  London  who 
ever  inquire  about  me,  if  there  are  any  such.  Give  love  and  kisses 
to  your  family,  and  believe  me  truly  yours,  Donald. 

A  few  passages  from  a  letter  of  August  ijth-^th,  to 
Gen.  Williams,  may  supplement  the  foregoing: 

.  .  .  Paris  increases  my  admiration  as  I  remain,  though  it  does 
not  grow  in  positive  favor.  I  have  no  conception  of  the  amount 
of  vice  that  absolutely  basks  in  the  sunshine  of  popular  favor. 
Any  pretension  to  morality  is  the  most  odd  thing  in  the  world. 
In  the  British  cities  the  grossness  of  such  vice  as  exists  disgusted 
me,  and  here  its  generality  disgusts.  You  need  not,  I  think,  fear 
my  falling  very  deeply  into  the  habits  of  the  Parisians.  Still,  it  is 
my  wish  to  know  here,  as  I  have  tried  to  know  elsewhere,  whatever 
is  very  new  and  strange,  though  it  be  at  the  same  time  shocking  to 
one's  tastes.  I  spend  my  time  in  studying  the  language,  in  read 
ing  French,  in  visiting  show  places,  and  occasionally  an  evening  at 
some  of  the  theatres — reading  the  play  first,  which  I  find  accus 
toms  my  ear  to  the  sound.  .  .  . 

When  you  give  my  regards  to  Mr.  White  tell  him  I  shall  come 
home  a  Democrat,  or  (as  I  am  really  serious)  perhaps  it  were  as 
well  not  known.  Observation  of  the  old  governments  has,  as  you 
anticipated,  thrown  out  of  mind  all  the  lesser  distractions  of  party 
and  given  a  general  regard  for  our  whole  country  and  for  the  prin 
ciples  upon  which  the  government  is  based;  and  as  a  consequence 
has  inclined  me  to  the  side  of  those  who  are  most  strict  and  un 
compromising  in  the  advocacy  of  those  principles.  .  .  . 

Letters  and  diary  enable  us  to  follow  him  on  a  round  trip 
from  Paris  which  occupied  him  from  August  2jd  to  October 
3oth,  1845: 

128 


EUROPE 

(To  Gen.  Williams.  HOTEL  DES  BERGUES,  GENEVA,  Sept.  8th, 
1845.) —  •  •  •  My"  stay  in  Paris  was  continued  up  to  the  23d  of 
August,  my  progress  in  the  language  being  considerable,  and  suffi 
cient  to  admit  of  my  traveling  without  serious  trouble.  Fontain- 
bleau  I  reached  by  rail  and  diligence.  After  looking  over  its  mag 
nificent  palace,  I  started  thence  with  a  Connecticut  companion 
[his  classmate,  Robert  W.  Forbes],  on  foot  and  in  pedestrian  attire, 
with  only  a  knapsack,  for  the  western  borders  of  France.  Our 
first  night  we  passed  half  way  to  Sens,  the  second  at  Sens,  and  so 
on  for  four  days;  but  finding  the  country  uninteresting,  took  coach 
from  Tonnerre  to  Dole,  and  thence  walked  a  hundred  miles  over 
the  mountains  to  this  place.  The  scenes  and  incidents  of  the  trip 
have  been  every  way  pleasing,  and  the  exercise  advantageous. 
Our  longest  day's  work  was  thirty  miles,  which  with  a  knapsack 
on  back  weighing  twelve  or  fifteen  pounds  and  over  mountain 
roads,  is  enough. 

I  have  had  the  opportunity  of  seeing  not  only  the  face  of  the 
country;  but  the  agricultural  methods,  the  habits  of  the  peasantry; 
in  short,  a  comparison  of  the  country  life  of  France  with  that  of 
England,  and  I  need  hardly  say  it  is  much  in  favor  of  the  latter 
in  every  respect. 

On  Sunday  (yesterday)  I  attended  the  principal  church  of  the 
Reform  principles  and  the  whole  appearance  both  of  audience  and 
preacher  carried  my  recollections  home  more  forcibly  than  any 
service  I  have  before  attended  this  side  of  the  water.  The  manner 
of  the  speaker  earnest  and  the  attention  good,  offering  altogether 
a  striking  contrast  to  the  mummery  of  the  Catholic  churches. 

(To  Mrs.  Goddard.  GENEVA,  Sunday  evening,  Sept.  7th, 
1845.) —  •  •  •  have  walked  over  the  Juras  through  most  magnifi 
cent  scenery  to  this  gem  of  continental  cities.  The  room  in  which 
I  write  is  in  the  fourth  story  of  the  Hotel  des  Bergues  and  from  the 
window  I  could  toss  this  villainous  pen  into  the  waters  of  the  lake, 
waters  so  blue  and  clear  that  I  can  see  the  pebbles  twenty  feet 
down.  .  .  .  Beyond  the  town  rise  some  of  the  lesser  limbs  of  the 

129 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

Alpine  ranges;  but  the  more  distant,  and  chief  of  all,  Mont  Blanc, 
have  had  their  heads  in  the  clouds  these  three  days.  People  of 
every  nation  and  tongue  are  met  together  here  and  one  hears  at 
table  as  many  languages  as  he  sees  dishes.  .  .  .  We  are,  in  fact, 
somewhat  behind  the  time  for  Swiss  journeying;  but  shall  have  the 
advantage  of  inns,  not  crowds — guides  disengaged,  and  perhaps 
a  spice  of  adventure  among  the  newly  fallen  snows  of  the  passes. 
To-morrow,  or  next  day  at  farthest,  we  set  out  with  our  shoes 
dressed  with  hobnails,  an  overcoat  and  a  water-proof  coat  added 
to  our  knapsack,  besides  a  pocket  telescope  and  a  brandy  flask, 
which,  by  the  way,  is  a  very  essential  equipment  amid  the  cold 
damps  of  the  mountains.  You  must  not  fear  my  imprudence  or 
exposure;  so  much  of  walking  has  given  a  very  reliable  amount 
of  experience.  It  is  quite  impossible  to  give  you  any  idea  of  the 
character  of  the  scenery  hereabouts,  or  of  the  wildness  of  the  pas 
sage  over  the  Juras.  For  fifteen  miles  on  Wednesday  last  we 
descended  all  the  way  to  the  little  town  of  Morez  completely  im 
bedded  in  the  mountains,  and  for  fifteen  miles  the  following  day 
we  as  constantly  ascended — the  road  twining  along  the  edge  of 
precipices  down  which  we  could  tumble  stones  three  or  four  thou 
sand  feet  into  the  valley  below. 

.  .  .  Do  not  expect  very  frequent  or  very  long  letters  from  me 
while  in  the  heat  of  these  pedestrian  adventures;  but  believe  that 
my  thoughts  wander  over  the  waters  to  your  quiet  nook  of  country 
far  oftener  than  these  letters.  And  do  not  tell  me  of  all  the  little 
ills  which  may  be  source  of  disturbance;  but  of  all  that  is  agreeable, 
and  of  all  your  hopes.  Rare  as  letters  are  at  this  distance,  I  want 
them  to  be  all  sunshine.  A  little  cloud  near  the  sun  casts  broad 
shadows  and  the  farther  off  you  are  the  more  likely  to  rest  on  you. 
Give  a  gay  tone  and  so  will  I. 

My  French  talk  is  bungling,  but  makes  waiters  and  shop 
keepers  understand.  I  hope  to  improve  it  in  further  travel  and 
confirm  it  by  practice  in  the  south  of  France.  ...  It  is  difficult 
to  seize  an  hour  from  the  business  of  travel.  The  day  sees  me  upon 

130 


EUROPE 

the  road  and  the  night  finds  me  wearied  with  the  day  and  willing 
to  seize  upon  the  first  sleeping  moments.  If  in  town,  all  its  sights 
are  to  be  seen — the  most  wearisome  to  the  body  of  all  possible 
employments. 

By  my  last  you  will  have  learned  my  determination  to  stop 
this  side  the  water  the  coming  winter;  and  when  I  see  the  beautiful 
fields  in  this  neighborhood  amid  the  most  beautiful  scenery  in  the 
world  and  this  city  lying  among  them  upon  the  borders  of  this 
sweet  lake,  I  feel  inclined  to  wish  never  to  return.  If  I  think  thus 
here,  what  shall  I  think  in  Italy? 

(To  the  same.  VALLEY  OF  CHAMOUNI,  SUISSE.  HOTEL  DE  LA 
NOUVELLE  COURONNE,  Oct.  8th,  1845.) — ^  *s  a  ramy  day  and  I  am 
fastened  in  the  inn.  If  it  had  been  pleasant  I  should  have  been 
at  this  hour  (11)  eight  or  nine  thousand  feet  above  the  level  of  the 
sea  traversing  the  Mer  de  Glace  under  the  guidance  of  a  couple  of 
the  valley  guides.  In  addition  to  the  rain,  the  guide  has  come  in 
this  morning  to  assure  us  that  heavy  snow  has  fallen  on  the  passes 
and  that  the  danger  of  avalanches  will  forbid  our  taking  the  in 
tended  route  for  some  days. 

Yesterday  I  was  upon  the  top  of  the  Flegere;  to-day  there  is  a 
foot  of  snow  upon  it  and  the  hills  around  are  all  whited  with  it  to 
within  a  thousand  feet  of  the  bottom  of  the  valley.  But  you  must 
know  something  of  what  I  have  been  doing  since  my  writing  from 
Geneva.  Nearly  all  of  Switzerland  has  been  marched  over;  its 
highest  mountain  passes  and  its  most  wonderful  sights  have  come 
under  trial  or  observation  and  we  are  now  looking  at  the  most 
grand  objects  of  all  Europe  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of 
Mt.  Blanc,  preparatory  to  our  decampment  for  the  season. 

.  .  .  Our  longest  walks  have  been  from  twenty-six  to  thirty 
miles  and  on  one  occasion,  having  missed  my  way  and  lost  my  com 
panion,  i  was  compelled  to  walk  thirty-three  miles  with  my  knap 
sack  weighing  eighteen  pounds,  before  reaching  a  stopping  place 
for  the  night.  Our  highest  ascents  have  been  something  over 
8, coo  feet  and  we  have  been  most  fortunate  in  weather  among  the 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

mountains,  rarely  meeting  with  fresh  snow  or  rain.  From  the 
Hospice  of  the  Grimsel,  something  over  seven  thousand  feet  above 
sea-level,  we  made  a  detour  over  the  glacier  of  the  Aar,  traversing 
the  ice  for  ten  miles  and  taking  a  dinner  of  cold  goat's  flesh  and 
wine  amid  the  ice  and  snows  of  the  highest  regions  of  the  Alps. 
Upon  the  Wengern  Alp  we  slept  a  night — a  few  miles  distant  from 
and  in  full  sight  of  one  of  the  highest  mountains  of  Switzerland — 
to  hear  the  falling  avalanches.  Edges  of  precipices  and  dizzy 
heights  have  become  familiar  things,  and  dangers  that  would  be 
real  at  home  only  make  the  blood  leap  livelier  amid  these  mag 
nificent  scenes.  .  .  . 

We  had  thought  of  taking  the  next  adventure  in  point  of  diffi 
culty — over  the  Col  de  Giant  into  Piedmont;  but  find  four  guides 
would  be  necessary  and  expenses  of  trip  some  twenty  dollars  each, 
which  is  more  than  can  be  paid  in  the  present  state  of  our  purses 
even  for  adventure.  Still,  however,  I  hope  to  have  something  to 
tell  of  in  a  small  way  when  I  sit  by  your  fire  on  some  Christmas 
visit  in  years  to  come. 

The  weather  is  clearing;  our  guide  has  come  and  says  we  may 
safely  go  to  the  Mon  tan  vert  on  the  edge  of  the  Mer  de  Glace.  If 
they  have  ink  I  will  finish  my  letter  in  the  midst  of  fresh  fallen 
snows  and  within  stone's  throw  of  glaciers  that  last  forever. 
8  o'clock  evening. — A  beautiful  moonlight  night  with  the  light 
dancing  on  all  the  mountain  peaks.  I  have  been  to  the  Mer  de 
Glace  and  am  at  Chamouni  again;  through  snow  six  inches  deep  we 
tramped  and  the  guides  have  assured  us  that  our  visit  to  the  higher 
latitudes  would  be  attended  with  imminent  danger,  so  we  are 
reluctantly  obliged  to  arrange  our  departure  for  to-morrow  toward 
the  Great  St.  Bernard.  The  crevices  in  the  glacier,  which  descend 
to  an  awful  depth,  are  bridged  over  with  the  new-fallen  snow  and 
a  step  on  them  would  be  fatal.  .  .  . 

The  entry  in  his  diary  for  the  3d  of  October  1845  begins 
with  the  words  "The  day  to  be  remembered  by  agreement 

132 


EUROPE 

with  M.  W.  G."    A  letter  to  Mrs.  Goddard  written  from 
Paris,  November  I2th,  1845,  makes  clear  the  meaning: 

.  .  .  You  find  me  at  Paris  again.  I  have  already  told  you  of 
my  glorious  run  over  the  mountains  of  Switzerland,  and  left  you 
last  if  my  memory  is  right,  in  the  valley  of  Chamouni.  A  subse 
quent  visit  to  the  famous  pass  of  St.  Bernard  and  the  coming  away 
in  a  snow  storm,  struggling  through  it  waist-deep,  was  the  most 
of  an  adventure  that  anywhere  overtook  us  and  served  as  the  crown 
ing  act  of  our  Swiss  travels.  Two  days  were  spent  at  Geneva  on 
our  return  and  we  took  our  departure  from  the  old  republican  city 
on  the  morning  of  Saturday,  the  i8th  of  October. 

On  the  morning  of  Sunday — following  the  Rhone  through  scen 
ery  that  would  have  been  magnificent  to  any  eyes  but  those  in 
which  images  of  Mt.  Blanc  and  the  glaciers  yet  lingered — we 
reached  Lyon,  the  second  city  of  France.  As  little  like  Sunday  was 
the  day  as  one  of  our  muster  days  in  New  England.  We  spent  five 
days  at  Lyon.  .  .  .  Through  Clermont,  Limoges,  Chateauroux, 
and  Orleans,  all  which  the  children  will  find  upon  the  map,  we 
journeyed  to  Paris.  Here  I  have  taken  rooms  again  and  shall  re 
main  probably  about  a  month.  .  .  . 

Meantime,  how  do  you  get  on  at  home?  Winter  is  upon  you 
again,  I  suppose,  though  here  there  is  no  sign  of  it  but  the  falling 
leaves.  And  Alfred,  I  suppose,  a  stout  fellow  driving  about  every 
where,  and  Julia  an  inch  or  two  higher  at  the  least  and  growing 
fast  to  be  a  Miss,  and  Henry  trudging  about  holding  by  Carlo's 
ears — who  by  the  way  must  be  getting  to  be  an  old  dog.  And  I  sup 
pose  the  dust  is  thick  over  the  books  and  the  pictures  and  the  guns 
and  the  poles  in  the  west  chamber;  and  your  garden  is  bare  again 
and  the  light  snows  begin  to  fall  and  the  quails  to  whistle  and  the 
wood-pile  to  grow  smaller  and  the  winter  clothes  to  be  made  and 
the  hogs  to  be  killed  and  the  mince  pies  to  be  mixed  and  Thanks 
giving  to  be  talked  of  and  the  long  evenings  to  come  with  their 
books  and  their  blaze  and  their  fun.  None  of  these  for  me  except 

IJ3 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

in  imagination  as  I  kindle  up  a  little  fire  in  my  German  stove  out  of 
two  or  three  sticks  and  draw  my  chair  before  it  and  put  my  hat 
down  upon  the  bureau  under  the  glass  and  sit  leaning  upon  my 
little  round  table  and  think  and  think,  or  look  out  of  the  window 
upon  the  noisy  street  full  of  people  and  omnibuses  and  carts,  the 
shops  on  each  side  blazing  with  light,  and  above  them,  rising  over 
opposite,  the  magnificent  store  houses — story  above  story — so  high 
that  I  can  hardly  get  a  glimpse  of  the  clear,  blue  sky  and  its  scat 
tered  stars  and  the  moon,  which  is  made  pale  by  the  thousand 
lamps  in  the  streets  below. 

By  and  by  the  great  bell  of  the  cathedral  of  St.  Roch,  where 
the  crowd  gathered  to  see  Marie  Antoinette  go  to  execution,  and 
upon  whose  steps,  that  I  can  see  from  my  window,  were  killed 
thousands  in  the  last  revolution,  strikes  twelve.  I  undress  and 
jump  into  my  bit  of  a  bed — smaller  even  than  the  white  bedstead — 
and  sleep  till  8.  There  is  no  little  musical  voice  to  come  to  the 
door  and  say,  "Uncle  Don,  Uncle  Don,  breakfast  is  ready !"  But 
the  noise  of  ten  thousand  voices  and  steps  wake  me  and  I  wander 
away  down  the  street  to  a  cafe  filled  with  little  marble-topped 
tables  and  touching  my  hat  to  the  woman  at  the  desk  I  take  my 
seat  at  one  of  them.  Directly,  there  comes  to  me  a  waiter  in  a 
white  apron  and  says,  " 'Que  desirez  vous,  Monsieur?"  I  say, 
"  Cafe  au  lait"  and  he  brings  me  a  nice  dish  of  coffee  and  nice  bread 
and  butter,  but  very  little  of  either.  I  spend  an  hour  over  it — 
reading  the  newspapers  and  observing  the  dozens  who  come  and 
go — and  after  pay[ing]  22  cents  for  my  breakfast  and  bowing  to  the 
woman  of  the  dais  am  in  the  great  streets  of  Paris  again.  I  am 
looking  at  the  wonders  of  the  great  city,  which  are  never  wholly 
seen,  or  I  am  reading  French,  or  with  a  friend  at  his  medical  lec 
ture  until  5.  Then  we  dine,  not  in  a  home  way;  but  in  the  same 
salon  with  perhaps  seventy  others — tables  with  two  only,  tables 
with  four,  and  tables  with  ten — and  the  waiters  serve  you  to  soup, 
bread,  three  dishes,  dessert,  and  half  a  bottle  of  wine,  for  two 
francs.  Going  down  we  find  ourselves  in  the  great  court  of  the 

134 


EUROPE 

Palais  Royal.  No  description  can  convey  to  you  any  idea  of  the 
brilliancy,  the  jewels,  the  throngs,  the  fountains  that  meet  the 
eye  at  every  hand.  While  I  stroll  there  looking  in  at  the  shop 
windows,  the  richest  in  the  world,  bustling  among  the  throng  of 
the  most  thronged  part  of  the  most  thronged  city  of  continental 
Europe,  you  are  sipping  quietly  a  cup  of  tea  before  the  stove  in 
the  long  room,  Mr.  G.  opposite,  A.  one  side,  J.  and  H.  the  other, 
Carlo  snoozing  before  the  fire,  little  dreaming  of  the  sights  his  old 
master  sees. — But  it  is  4  o'clock;  my  landlady  has  just  brought  me 
in  a  handkerchief  which  she  took  from  my  hands  yesterday  to  hem 
and  for  which  she  insists  on  receiving  nothing — a  rare  thing.  For 
next  to  vanity,  avarice  is  the  controlling  element  of  French  char 
acter.  I  had  my  daguerreotype  taken  in  my  Swiss  costume  at 
Lyon,  and  if  I  find  opportunity  will  send  it  you. 

...  It  occurs  to  me,  Mary,  that  a  year  ago  the  jd  of  October, 
as  we  rode  together  into  Norwich,  we  talked  of  our  probable 
whereabouts  that  day  a  year  on.  And  where  were  you,  and  where 
was  I  ?  I  turn  back  to  my  journal  and  find  I  was  upon  the  great 
road  of  the  Simplon,  between  the  two  miserable  towns  of  Leuk  and 
Sion,  on  foot,  with  knapsack  on  back,  trudging  along  the  dusty 
way,  occasionally  met  by  some  English  family  on  their  way  to 
Italy,  occasionally  stopping  to  pick  a  flower,  or  to  gaze  on  some 
magnificent  view — opening  through  the  hills  that  border  the 
Rhine — of  the  higher  Alps.  Sometimes,  as  we  drew  near  in  the 
latter  end  of  the  day  to  the  vine-growing  countries,  we  would  steal 
a  cluster  or  two  from  the  vineyards  beside  the  way;  sometimes 
chat  with  a  chance  passerby;  and  once  drew  a  story  from  a  passing 
soldier  of  a  murder  committed  only  the  week  before  upon  that 
very  road,  and  he  pointed  us  out  the  spot,  and  told  us  he  was  him 
self  in  search  of  the  assassin.  With  the  sun  two  hours  high  we 
tramped  into  the  village  of  Sion,  a  strange  town  with  high  old  cas 
tles  guarding  it  now  untenanted.  We  wandered  up  to  them  that 
night  after  a  dinner  at  the  Croix  Blanche  and  sat  upon  a  rock  from 
which  we  could  see  miles  along  the  valley  of  the  Rhone,  and  over- 
US 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

look  the  town,  and  catch  views  of  mountains,  higher  than  the 
highest  at  home,  that  threw  long  shadows  over  fir  forests  and  vine 
yards,  and  before  we  left,  over  the  whole  plain;  for  the  sun  had  set 
before  we  went  down  to  our  night  quarters,  and  when  we  reached 
them,  it  was  bedtime.  Such  was  my  jd  October  1845.  Prav> 
what  was  yours? 

.  .  .  And  what  does  your  father  say  about  war  with  England 
and  about  President  Polk?  Tell  him  these  wretchedly  one-sided 
governments  of  the  old  world  have  nearly  made  a  Democrat  of  me, 
and  what  would  he  say  to  my  going  back  to  the  great  borough  of 
Salem  and  leasing  the  old  homestead  of  Mr.  Jonathan  Hilliard,  and 
putting  myself  under  the  tutelage  of  Squire  Matthias  Baker,  and 
being  made  Squire  myself,  and  creeping  along  by  occasional 
harangues  around  the  anvil  at  the  corner,  on  rainy  days,  so  as  in 
process  of  time  to  be  made  town  clerk  ?  Eh,  isn't  that  a  prospect 
to  make  one's  eyes  glisten  even  in  Paris ! 

I  would  give  a  guinea  to  see  such  a  man  as  your  postmaster, 
Captain  H.,  set  down  all  at  once  in  the  middle  of  the  Place  de  la 
Concorde  just  at  this  hour — 8  o'clock  by  St.  Roch.  How  he  would 
open  his  eyes  to  see  that  column  of  Luxor — a  single  block  of  granite 
towering  a  hundred  feet  into  the  air,  and  the  fountains  with  their 
naiads  and  nereids  and  dolphins  throwing  hogsheads  of  glittering 
water  into  the  air  every  moment,  and  the  place  itself — bigger  than 
his  farm — paved  with  hewn  stones,  over  which  thousands  are 
tramping  every  hour,  and  which  is  made  as  light  as  day  by  a  hun 
dred  brazen  lamp-posts  higher  than  his  house  and  the  cost  of  each 
one  of  which  would  build  him  a  little  palace.  How  he  would 
wonder  at  the  great  white  horses  rearing  on  the  pedestals  of  stone 
and  shaking  their  manes  into  the  air,  yet  never  changing  place; 
for  they  are  hewn  out  of  marble.  I  fancy  the  old  man  would  rub 
his  spectacles — and  so  would  I,  if  I  wore  them.  Then  there  is  a 
window  I  would  like  to  set  him  before,  in  the  Palais  Royal — that 
of  the  royal  victualler.  Such  apples  ! — bigger  than  your  melons 
that  grow  by  the  summer  house;  and  such  pears !  five  would  fill 

136 


EUROPE 

your  water  pail;  and  there  are  fresh  fish  from  Scotland,  fresh  dates 
from  Algiers,  pomegranates  from  Sardinia,  figs  from  Cyprus, 
melons  from  Portugal,  fawns  from  the  Pyrenees,  grapes  from 
Madeira,  oranges  from  Seville,  bear's  meat  from  Russia,  and 
chamois  flesh  from  the  Alps. 

This  is  a  long  letter  and  perhaps  will  not  pay  for  the  reading; 
but  it  has  been  well  intended,  so  let  not  good  intentions  be  unrec- 
ompensed.  .  .  .  Remember  me  to  your  father  and  his  family,  to 
friends  in  N[ew]  L[ondon],  a  twig  of  the  ear  to  Alf,  a  kind  remem 
brance  to  Mr.  G.,  a  kiss  to  Henry,  one  on  each  cheek  to  Julia,  and 
an  affectionate  good  bye  to  yourself. 

(To  Gen.  Williams.  PARIS,  RUE  DAUPHINE,  Nov.  Hth, 
1845.) —  •  •  •  We  visited  nearly  every  place  of  interest  in  Swit 
zerland  and  were  enabled  to  extend  our  observations  as  voyageurs 
a  pied  to  many  a  magnificent  spot  wholly  inaccessible  to  the  post 
ing  traveler.  We  rarely  took  guides  and  never  mounted  a  mule. 
Our  expenses  in  consequence  were  exceedingly  light,  not  averaging 
more  than  ten  francs  a  day  each.  We  avoided  the  larger  hotels  fre 
quented  by  English  and  posting  parties,  not  so  much  from  motives 
of  economy  as  from  the  fact  that  in  our  mountain  dresses  we  would 
hardly  be  reckoned  sufficiently  bien  tenu  for  the  table  d'hote.  .  .  . 
My  expenses  are,  I  think,  less  than  those  of  most,  though  not  so 
little  as  they  ought  to  be.  ... 

As  in  Great  Britain,  he  was  all  along  keeping  an  eye  upon 
the  countryside  and  thinking  of  the  aesthetic  deficiencies  of 
rural  life  in  America.  "Its  [Geneva's]  hedges  are  like  Eng 
lish  hedges/'  runs  one  of  his  Cultivator  letters,  "and  its  roads 
like  English  roads.  The  tastes  of  its  inhabitants  have,  too, 
a  smack  of  rurality.  There  are  public  walks  shaded  with  the 
richest  native  trees,  or  a  public  garden  where  the  poorest 
may  study  botany  better  than  in  books.  When  shall  we 
have  such  things  ?  When  we  are  wiser,  surely;  and  when 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

we   are  richer,  surely — for  we  shall  be  richer  for  having 
them."  1 

When  next  we  hear  of  him,  the  word  is  from  Italy: 

(To  Gen.  Williams.  NAPLES,  Jan.  i4th,  1846.)—  ...  I 
left  Paris  about  the  2oth  of  December,  after  the  weather  had  be 
come  unpleasantly  cold,  in  company  with  a  Mr.  Foster,  of  Boston, 
for  the  south  of  France  and  Italy.  We  were  some  eight  or  ten  days 
between  Paris  and  Marseilles — stopping  a  day  at  Lyon,  a  day  at 
Avignon,  a  day  (Sunday)  at  Nismes,  a  day  at  Aries,  and  two  days 
at  Marseilles.  Unfortunately,  by  a  fire  which  consumed  nearly 
all  my  letters  at  Paris  (confined  to  the  upper  drawer  of  my  bureau), 
I  lost  yours  containing  the  address  of  your  old  acquaintance  at 
Nismes.  .  .  .  The  town  pleased  me  much  and  had  I  not  been  in 
company,  should  have  been  inclined  to  stop  for  a  month  or  more. 
The  ruins  were  exceedingly  interesting  and  still  more  so  at 
Aries.  ...  At  8  o'clock  the  morning  of  Jan.  ist,  we  went  on 
board  the  steam  vessel  Herculaneum  for  Genoa.  At  2  we  went  out 
of  port  and  the  next  evening  at  6  reached  the  beautiful  city  of 
Genoa,  where  we  passed  three  days  seeing  its  rich  palaces  and 
splendid  churches.  On  Monday  evening  we  sailed  for  Naples  in 
the  Castor^  stopping  at  Leghorn  long  enough  to  run  out  to  Pisa  for 
a  sight  of  its  cathedral  and  leaning  tower,  and  a  day  at  Civita 
Vecchia,  and  reached  this  place  on  Thursday  the  8th.  .  .  .  We 
have  already  seen  the  wonders  of  the  buried  cities  of  Pompeii  and 
Herculaneum,  and  on  Saturday  climbed  up  to  have  a  look  at  the 
burning  crater  of  Vesuvius.  No  description  can  exaggerate  the 
grandeur  of  its  appearance;  twice  we  were  obliged  to  run  for  fear 
of  the  falling  fragments  of  red  hot  lava  which  are  thrown  to  a 
prodigious  height  in  the  air.  .  .  . 

(Diary.     January  9th,  1846.) —  .  .  .  ride  round  to  the  amphi 
theater  at  the  other  border  of  the  town  [Pompeii],  of  immense  size 

^he  Cultivator  (February  1846),  50.     Written  from  Paris,   November   I4th, 
1845. 

138 


EUROPE 

— seats  for  25,000  persons  ...  as  we  leave  the  amphitheater  the 
sun  sets,  we  take  seats,  and  amid  the  adieus  of  the  guides,  drive 
off  in  the  eye  of  the  violet  sky  over  the  Gulf  of  Naples,  and  the  soft 
moonlight  dipping  the  whole  in  melted  silver,  turning  now  and 
then  to  see  red  bursts  of  flame  and  fiery  stones  leaping  out  of  the 
crater  of  Vesuvius.  .  .  . 

(Diary.  January  loth,  1846.) — Up  at  7  for  Vesuvius.  Car 
riage  with  .  .  .  three  horses  ...  as  far  as  the  little  village  above 
H[erculaneum].  The  day  beautiful  as  June  along  the  bays  of 
L[ong]  I[sland]  Sound.  Then  we  took  our  mountain  guide  upon  a 
little  shag  of  a  pony  and  continued  through  narrow  streets  and 
afterward  through  vineyards  and  under  branches  of  figtrees  up 
the  side  of  the  mountain.  As  we  rise  we  catch  views  of  the  bay  and 
the  villages  along  the  border,  growing  more  and  more  extensive  as 
we  rise  to  where  the  rough  lava  of  1819  shows  its  hideous  ridges 
covering  all  the  ground  save  one  little  oasis  where  stood  and  yet 
stands  a  chapel.  Up  we  toil,  Vesuvius  growing  larger  in  front, 
the  seams  in  its  side  deeper,  the  smoke  thicker  and  heavier  .  .  . 
over  the  low  country  the  villages  dot  the  broad  landscape  with 
white  and  the  courier  points  out  the  long  line  of  the  summer 
palace  of  the  King  under  the  distant  hills  and  Naples  is  like  a  nest 
of  houses  dropped  into  the  edge  of  the  water  .  .  .  after  an  hour 
of  rough  climbing  over  the  loose  pieces  of  lava  we  found  ourselves 
on  the  verge  of  the  old  crater.  At  the  left,  far  down,  was  the  great 
gorge  of  the  eruption  of  1819  .  .  .  perhaps  a  half  mile  from  where 
we  stood  was  the  cone  of  the  present  crater  .  .  .  black  save  where 
the  red  lava  boiled  over  the  edge  or  the  red  masses  thrown  out  of 
its  puffing  mouth  fell  upon  the  pile.  Here,  too,  the  sound  of  the 
explosions  first  became  heard — gruff,  muttering,  heavy  sounds 
succeeded  by  bursts  of  fire  and  the  ejection  of  great  red  flakes  of 
lava  a  hundred  feet  in  the  air.  We  follow  the  edge  of  the  old  crater 
until  we  arrive  at  a  good  crossing  place  where  we  strike  boldly 
upon  the  fissured  surface  .  .  .  and  reach  the  debris  of  the  crater 

139 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

only  a  few  weeks  old.  Here  the  guide  drew  us  together  and  in  the 
thundering  of  the  mountain  ordered  us  to  follow  him  closely  and 
to  look  up  to  avoid  the  falling  stones.  At  this  there  was  some 
demurral  and  the  idea  of  dodging  the  stone  throws  of  Vesuvius 
with  no  better  dodging  ground  than  the  hot  and  crumbling  sul 
phur  and  lava  upon  a  steep  declivity  was  no  way  relishable.  But 
the  advance  of  the  guide  and  courier  and  one  or  two  of  the  boldest 
gave  courage  and  up  we  scrambled,  not  without  fearful  looks  at 
the  angry  column  of  fire  and  smoke,  and  the  thick  bursts  of  lava. 
Five  minutes  more  and  we  were  scarce  seventy  feet  from  the  orifice, 
a  little  hard  but  hot  level  of  lava  to  stand  upon.  Nearer  the  cone 
and  just  by  its  edge  was  a  hissing  stream  of  fire  keeping  the  lava 
constantly  in  fusion  about  it.  ...  The  scene  was  horrific  and 
not  devoid  of  danger.  A  hundred  feet  into  the  air  the  wheezing 
mountain  threw  the  great  masses  of  red  lava,  bursting  as  it  as 
cended  into  a  thousand  pieces,  yet  still  large  enough  to  come  down 
with  successive  crashes  upon  every  part  of  the  little  cone  of  cin 
ders.  The  wind  blew  the  smoke  from  us  and  the  guide  promised 
to  assure  us  in  time,  of  danger.  Once  or  twice  as  the  mountain 
gave  a  louder  bellow  the  alarm  was  raised  among  us  and  off  we 
ran  as  fast  as  the  rough,  hot  lava  would  permit,  looking  up  fear 
fully  at  the  ten  thousand  red  hot  fragments  in  the  sky,  nor  was 
courage  entire  when  all  fell  heavily  and  safely  upon  the  growing 
heaps  of  scoriae;  but  with  trembling  knees  and  pale  faces  we  gazed 
on  the  successive  heavings  of  the  furnace.  .  .  .  Withdrawing  still 
farther  nearly  to  the  edge  of  the  old  crater  ...  we  found  a  bed  of 
sulphur  still  hot  and  fuming.  From  this  point,  eight  miles  away 
below  upon  the  plain  traced  out  the  few  uncovered  streets  of 
Pompeii  and  the  mammoth  amphitheater;  from  that  distant 
point  of  observation  forming  some  estimate  of  the  agency  which 
covered  the  city  in  ashes.  .  .  .  We  turn  homeward  and  com 
ing  to  the  descent  half  slide,  half  creep,  a  thousand  and  more  of 
feet  down  the  side  of  the  mountain.  ...  At  6  o'clock  we  are  at 
home.  .  .  . 

140 


EUROPE 

A  letter  to  Mrs.  Goddard  written  from  the  Piazza  di 
Grand  Duca,  Florence,  April  2jd,  1846,  summarizes  in  a 
pleasing  way  about  three  months  of  travel: 

.  .  .  You  see  I  am  at  Florence,  the  most  beautiful  city  of 
Italy,  having  left  Rome  ten  days  since,  after  the  close  of  the  great 
ceremonies  of  Holy  Week.  Six  days  were  spent  on  the  way  travel 
ing  by  vetturino,  in  company  with  three  other  Americans,  one 
Frenchman,  and  two  Venetians.  The  country  passed  over,  after 
leaving  the  desolate  Roman  Campagna,  was  as  beautiful  as  a 
dream.  There  was  Mont  Soracte,  and  the  falls  of  Terni  (vide 
Byron's  description),  and  the  Lake  Thrasimene  (Macaulay),  and 
the  vale  of  Clitumnus  (vide  Byron  and  Macaulay),  and  Arezzo,  the 
birthplace  of  Petrarch,  and  everywhere  sweet,  rich,  cultivated 
valleys  and  fine  old  castellated  towns,  and  rivers  green  and  clear 
as  emerald,  and  mountains  blue  and  shadowy  as  fairyland,  and 
atmosphere  that  set  one  sleeping  despite  the  beauty. 

But  you  want  to  know  what  I  was  doing  at  Rome  the  three 
months  I  was  there.  First  came  the  Carnival,  which  filled  a  week 
with  as  much  amusement  as  could  be  crammed  into  a  week;  then 
St.  Peter's,  a  work  for  a  month's  looking;  then  the  Vatican,  and 
the  ruins,  and  the  capitol,  and  the  galleries,  and  the  three  hundred 
churches,  not  one  of  which  but  would  be  a  wonder  in  Connecticut; 
and  occasional  study  of  Italian;  and  afterward  a  week's  ramble  on 
foot  among  the  Apennines  thirty  miles  from  Rome  with  knapsack 
and  stick  and  guide;  and  after  that  the  gorgeous  ceremonies  of 
Palm  Sunday  and  Easter,  in  which  more  cloth  of  gold  is  worn  than 
would  clothe  every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  your  town;  and  the 
Miserere  performed  by  the  Pope's  choir  in  a  way  that  brings  tears 
and  makes  one  think  he  hears  the  hosts  of  heaven  bewailing  the 
event  which  the  occasion  commemorates.  Then  there  was  the  illu 
mination  of  St.  Peter's  with  5,000  lamps — 2,000  bursting  into  a 
flame  in  a  moment  and  making  the  sky  seem  on  fire;  the  evening 
after,  the  fire-works,  in  which  among  other  small  combustions, 

141 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

6,000  rockets  of  different  colored  lights  are  sent  into  the  sky  at  one 
moment.  And  yet  the  day  after  [there]  was  a  balloon  ascension  in 
the  park  of  the  most  beautiful  of  the  Roman  villas,  in  which  (the 
park)  were  assembled  10  to  12,000  of  the  men  and  women  of  every 
country  of  Europe. 

Madame  de  Stael,  I  believe  it  is,  says  that  Rome  is  the  drawing 
room  of  Europe.  It  is  very  true,  and  at  the  churches  and  the 
galleries  and  the  promenades  may  be  seen  the  pick  and  the  fashion 
from  the  family  of  the  Emperor  of  Russia  (whose  traveling  house 
hold  consists  of  the  moderate  number  of  two  hundred)  to  the  small 
counts  and  baronesses  from  Tuscany  and  the  Rhine;  and  at  the 
Hotel  d'Angleterre  where  I  spent  my  first  week  in  Rome,  one-third 
were  princes,  and  more  than  half  titled  nobility  of  England,  of 
Russia,  of  France,  and  Germany;  nor  are  they  too  much  unlike  the 
rest  of  the  world  to  escape  being  talked  to:  for  three  days  a  German 
baron  and  myself  kept  up  a  rambling  conversation  in  French  at 
the  table  d'hote^  and  an  Italian  count  at  my  room  has  taught  me 
more  Italian  than  my  teacher.  And  now  I  jabber  in  Italian  better 
than  in  French. 

Thirty  pages  are  blackened  in  my  note-book  with  jottings  on 
my  trip  in  the  Apennines  and  a  great  many  more  with  Carnival  and 
Holy  Week  at  Rome.  You  know  I  had  always  a  sort  of  wish  to 
lose  myself  under  the  great  roof  of  St.  Peter's  and  I  have  done  it. 
There  was  no  disappointment;  but  the  wonder  grew  upon  me  each 
one  of  the  thirty  times  that  I  wandered  about  it,  and  now  [that]  I 
have  left  it,  it  seems  vaster  than  ever.  I  have  seen  6,000  people  in 
it  and  no  more  appearance  of  a  crowd  than  your  three  children 
would  make  trotting  up  the  aisle  in  your  Salem  meeting  house. 
Groton  Monument  might  be  set  down  upon  the  pavement  within 
and  not  reach  the  roof,  and  the  spire  of  the  new  Trinity  at  New 
York,  if  put  under  the  dome,  would  not  serve  for  ladder  long  enough 
to  dust  the  magnificent  mosaics  of  its  panels.  To  loiter  under  such 
ceiling;  to  hear  the  Miserere  in  such  a  place,  and  see  a  thousand  sol 
diers  in  different  uniforms,  and  sixty  cardinals  in  furs  and  velvets, 

142 


EUROPE 

and  the  Pope  in  robes  of  satin,  and  his  officials  in  silks,  and  his 
guards  in  the  richest  uniform  of  the  world,  and  the  stars  of  every 
order  of  nobility,  and  the  insignia  of  embassage  from  every  court 
of  Europe,  and  to  feel  the  presence  of  the  place — is  one  of  those 
experiences  which  may  be  remembered,  but  can  never  be  told  of. 

But  here  I  am — opposite  the  stern  old  palace  of  the  Grand  Duke 
that  has  seen  slaughter  enough  to  make  the  gloomy  windows  spout 
blood — and  below  it  the  place^  and  the  fountains,  and  the  arcades 
running  off  to  the  Arno.  ...  It  is  three  o'clock  and  I  must  go 
and  have  a  look  at  the  Cathedral  before  dinner. 

8  o'clock.  I  have  seen  it,  and  it  is  a  glorious  old  temple;  but 
what  can  be  said  after  seeing  St.  Peter's?  .  .  . 

However  much  the  young  man  admired  the  outward 
splendor  of  the  exercises  of  Holy  Week,  he  was  not  without 
his  own  private  opinions,  some  of  which  he  confided  to  his 
diary: 

(April  5th,  1846.) — Palm  Sunday.  .  .  .  1  found  my  way  home 
to  write  this  before  the  crowd  left,  tired  of  the  inanities  of  that 
service  which  commemorates  a  great  date  in  the  life  of  the  Savior — 
his  entry  into  Jerusalem.  He  rode  upon  an  ass;  the  Pope  passes  on 
the  shoulders  of  men  on  a  gilt  throne  and  in  gilt  robes  such  as 
Christ  never  wore  and  never  will  wear  till  he  judges  Pope  and 
beggar.  It  may  all  be  well,  this  show  of  the  high  priest  of  the 
Church — who  knows?  The  first  temple  the  Jews  built  was  a  rich 
one  and  God  directed  its  building,  and  the  Levites  wore  rich  robes 
and  God  appointed  them.  Yet  Christ  was  born  in  a  manger  and 
John  the  Baptist,  who  came  to  tell  of  him,  wore  the  skins  of  wild 
animals.  Which  is  the  better,  the  Levitical  or  the  Christian  prac 
tice?  And  what  boots  either  in  view  of  living  for  the  future  so  as 
to  make  that  future  what  each  one  wishes  it  may  be — happy? 
Six  thousand  years  are  gone,  and  the  rest  are  going;  millions  of 
men  are  gone  to  their  graves  and  the  rest  are  going,  and  there  will 
be  an  end.  And  to  that  end  all  look  forward — some  gaily,  some 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

fearfully,  some  doubtingly,  some  carelessly,  some  frequently,  some 
seldom;  but  they  all  look,  they  all  must  look;  for  it  will  be  so  near 
that  they  can  see  nothing  else  except  they  look  back,  which  they 
certainly  will  do,  and  if  they  can  look  back  calmly,  they  can  look 
forward  calmly.  There  will  be  a  great  many  colors  behind  to  look 
at;  there  will  be  only  these  two  before — white  and  black.  Chemists 
say  all  colors  well  mixed  make  white;  colors  badly  mixed  make 
black.  Who  mixes  his  colors  well  will  then  see  light  behind  and 
light  before;  who  mixes  his  colors  ill,  will  see  blackness  behind  and 
blackness  before. 

From  Venice  he  wrote  to  Gen.  Williams,  May  2jd,  1846: 

You  find  me  under  the  Austrian  flag:  five  days  here  and  four  at 
Milan  I  have  been  under  its  protection.  ...  I  am  now  alone  and 
unless  I  fall  in  with  some  one  on  the  way,  shall  continue  alone.  .  .  . 
You  know  that  this  is  a  city  founded  in  the  water,  and  as  such  is 
exceedingly  curious.  The  splendor,  however,  is  gone  by,  its  no 
bility  ruined,  or  dependent  upon  the  mercies  of  Austrian  despotism. 
Its  decaying  palaces  and  crushed  aristocracy  tell  a  sadder  tale  of 
time's  changes  than  can  be  learned  elsewhere  in  Europe.  The 
Austrian  Government  is  lenient  and  yet  severe:  it  builds  the  people 
churches  and  theaters,  but  denies  them  all  offices  of  trust;  it  gives 
them  the  best  of  music  for  their  amusement,  but  denies  them  all 
liberty  of  thought.  .  .  . 

...  it  is  more  difficult  to  find  a  proper  companion  than  you 
would  suppose.  I  have  met  many  [people]  who  have  made  me  blush 
for  my  country.  You  will  have  heard  with  indignation  of  the  de 
camping  of  our  old  consul  at  Rome,  leaving  $3,000  of  debt  behind 
him.  Our  system  of  consul  making  and  consul  paying  is  a  vil 
lainous  one.  Without  salary,  they  are  obliged  to  fleece  traveling 
Americans — many  of  them  poor  artists — for  a  support.  And  after 
all,  [they]  throw  shame  on  the  country. 

My  views  in  regard  to  politics  are  more  firmly  fixed  in  the  direc 
tion  heretofore  hinted  to  you.  You  know  me  better  than  to  sup- 

144 


EUROPE 

pose  I  would  favor  the  insolence  of  any  particular  member  of 
Government.  But  seen  from  this  distance,  there  appears  a  unity 
of  design  and  purpose  in  Democratic  measures  more  consistent 
with  our  Declaration  of  Independence  and  its  burthen  than  in  the 
wavering,  various,  and  merely  negative  aims  of  the  opposite 
party.  Besides,  observations  here  are  convincing  as  to  the  fact 
that  the  spirit  of  our  Democracy,  though  it  may  be  somewhat 
tainted  by  radicalism,  is  the  progressive  spirit  of  the  age  and  ulti 
mately  will  be  the  triumphant  one.  .  .  . 

(Diary.  June  nth,  1846.) — •  .  .  .  Impressions  upon  the 
whole  of  Berlin  wholly  unfavorable.  Its  streets  less  orderly  and 
less  beautiful  than  the  better  part  of  American  cities;  the  pave 
ment  of  the  worst  description  except  in  the  Unterlinden;  the  trot- 
toirs  for  the  most  part  formed  of  the  same  round,  sharp  pebbles  as 
the  streets;  the  shops,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  of  the  fancy 
iron-work  and  Paris  modes  and  soldiers'  equipments,  of  inferior 
description;  the  private  mansions  low  and  without  any  of  the  mag 
nificence  of  the  Vienna  houses;  the  streets  not  wearing  the  same  air 
of  bustle  and  business,  and  everything  betokening  the  presence  of 
that  military  supremacy  which  reigns  here  to  the  exclusion  of  free 
commercial  or  free  social  action.  The  mirth  finds  its  being  in  the 
soirees  and  operas;  the  business  is  centered  in  parades  and  the 
making  of  epauletry.  The  days  when  a  Frederick  the  Great  could 
make  a  soldier's  coat  the  passport  to  everything  that  human  vanity 
and  human  ambition  desire,  are  gone  by.  Conquering  is  done  by 
diplomacy  and  not  by  the  sword;  yet  the  Prussians,  forgetting  the 
lapse  of  time  that  has  so  altered  the  condition  of  these  things,  still 
wear  the  scabbard  while  the  sword  is  gone,  and  with  their  martial 
music,  which  is  the  best  in  the  world,  and  with  their  military  exer 
cise,  which  is  faultless,  they  honor  their  greatest  monarch  by  dis 
honoring  themselves.  If  Prussia  was  a  camp  to  supply  the  world 
with  armies,  they  could  do  no  better;  as  it  is,  they  could  do  no 
worse. 

145 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

The  29th  of  June  saw  him  in  Antwerp,  his  face  turned  to 
Paris,  his  thoughts  toward  America.  The  following  para 
graphs  are  from  an  Antwerp  letter  of  June  29th  to  Gen. 
Williams: 

.  .  .  My  route  since  Venice  has  lain  through  Trieste,  a  bustling 
commercial  town;  Vienna,  after  Paris,  the  finest  city  of  Europe; 
Berlin,  Prague,  Dresden,  Hamburg,  Bremen,  Amsterdam,  Haarlem, 
and  Rotterdam.  I  have  made  acquaintances  along  the  route,  of 
all  nations,  and  traveled  agreeably.  I  have  seen  much  and  I  trust 
improved  by  the  observations  made. 

.  .  .  It  is  now  the  bustling  season — everyone  traveling,  inns 
and  railways  full.  All  tongues  are  busy  with  our  war  and  the  fall 
of  the  English  Ministry.  I  am  obliged  to  defend  the  best  way  I 
can  our  assumed  position  with  Mexico,  which  I  must  say  is  looked 
upon  very  much  like  a  wolf  and  lamb  state. 

The  passing  of  the  Corn  Bill  is  the  occasion  of  rejoicings  and 
illuminations  all  over  Britain  and  will  be  to  some  extent  in  America. 
I  visited  Bremen  and  Hamburg  chiefly  from  the  fact  of  our  growing 
commercial  relations  with  those  countries,  and  called  upon  and 
conversed  with  the  consuls  at  each.  .  .  . 

I  had  the  good  fortune  to  pass  Berlin  and  Leipsic  on  the  occa 
sion  of  the  great  Saxon  wool  market,  to  which  buyers  come  from 
every  quarter  of  the  world,  and  as  I  strolled  upon  the  Bourse  at 
Berlin  in  my  white  traveling  chapeau,  I  was  addressed  by  a  mer 
chant  who  had  taken  me  for  an  English  wool  buyer.  ...  At 
Vienna  I  called  upon  our  Minister,  Mr.  Stiles,  and  also  upon  Mr. 
Norris,  of  Philadelphia,  who  has  there  a  large  manufactory  of 
locomotives  and  who  kindly  showed  me  over  his  establish 
ment.  .  .  . 

(Diary.  July  jd,  1846.) —  .  .  .  there  are  .  .  .  very  nice 
German  people,  as  everybody  knows,  and  hard  students  who 
fight  duels  and  smoke  pipes  for  recreation;  but  one  does  not  see 
this  class  in  traveling,  for  they  are  too  poor  to  travel,  and  it  is 

146 


EUROPE 

necessary  to  judge  by  what  one  does  see — laying  aside  those  with 
ribbons  in  their  button-holes,  who  are  more  than  half,  and  who 
hold  their  heads  so  high  that  there  is  no  way  of  a  small  man's  form 
ing  an  opinion.  .  .  .  However,  the  Germans  are  a  social  people; 
that  is  to  say,  a  hearty  people.  It  is  surprising  with  what  good 
will  they  eat  their  dinners  and  never  mind  the  small  ingenuity  of 
using  their  fingers  for  forks  or  toothpicks.  They  have  energy  for 
grubbing  either  at  Greek  roots  or  a  duck  bone;  for  I  know  the  pro 
fessors  do  the  first,  and  the  man  next  me  at  table  did  the  last. 

But  as  for  other  energy,  the  energy  that  prompts  to  manly 
independence  and  self  government — they  had  rather  smoke,  or  eat 
stewed  cherries,  or  learn  Latin  than  to  trouble  themselves  with  it; 
and  here  in  this  town  of  Frankfort,  calling  itself  a  free  town — it 
might  as  well  call  itself  the  sun  in  the  heavens — Austrian  and 
Prussian  soldiers  are  posted  at  the  corners,  and  they  close  the  gates 
of  the  city  and  fire  the  guns,  while  the  vigorous  and  stalwart  young 
men  of  Frankfort  sit  before  coffee  and  puff  tobacco  smoke  !  What 
sort  of  freedom  is  this  ?  There  are  nice  streets  and  shops  and  books 
to  read;  but  an  old  idiotic  Emperor  of  Austria,  who  does  not  know 
whether  the  United  States  is  in  North  or  South  America,  sends 
bewhiskered  ignoramuses  with  guns  to  parade  the  streets  and  keep 
the  free  people  of  Frankfort  as  he  chooses  they  should  be  kept. 

What  can  the  soul  of  a  young  man  be  made  of  in  this  nineteenth 
century,  which,  when  disciplined  by  study,  enlightened  by  history, 
and  spurred  by  ambition,  can  smoke  pipes  and  laugh  and  crack 
jokes  year  after  year  in  the  face  of  such  mummery  as  this?  Is  it 
true  philosophy  to  live  abased  when  resistance  to  the  power  that 
debases  would  be  vain?  I  do  not  decide  for  others;  but  I  do  know 
if  I  were  a  German  some  conditions  would  change  themselves,  or 
else  I  should  go  to  spend  some  years  in  the  prison  of  the  State. 

What  a  glorious  contrast  that  government  of  ours  !  Whatever 
its  defects,  and  they  are  many;  with  all  the  troubles  that  insurrec 
tion  of  popular  and  uneducated  wishes  may  involve  us  in;  with  all 
the  disrepute  that  popular  fanaticism  may  subject  us  to;  there  is 

U7 


THE  LIFE  OF  DONALD  G.  MITCHELL 

something  inexpressibly  glorious  in  the  thought  of  your  being  equal 
in  exercise  of  power  to  your  fellow;  no  bounds  to  chafe  against  that 
you  in  common  with  others  have  not  set;  no  princely  hierarchy  to 
throw  in  the  shade  by  its  unreal  splendors  all  that  genius  and  all 
that  patience  can  accomplish;  no  ribbons  and  spurs  to  supersede 
homespun,  if  it  be  directed  by  energy;  if  it  be  pushed  forward  with 
zeal.  Think  of  trying  to  be  [a]  diplomatist  of  original  and  philo 
sophical  design  in  the  face  of  such  a  man  as  Metternich  !  A  man 
might  as  well  propose  a  ball  in  a  salon  lighted  by  the  sun  at  noon, 
in  place  of  having  it  under  the  gaslights  of  night.  There  is  no 
room  for  effort;  there  is  no  encouragement  for  exertion.  Talent 
all  goes  in  direct  channels  to  work  upon  society;  poetry  goes  to 
Fausts  and  devils;  patient  ingenuity  to  philology;  professional  en 
deavor  to  medicine  and  the  natural  sciences;  conversation  to 
fashion  and  scandal.  There  are  no  Burkes;  there  are  no  Pitts; 
there  are  no  Peels;  there  are  no  Websters  in  Germany — and  when 
will  be?  .  .  . 

(Diary.  July  4th,  1846.) —  .  .  .  Hunt  two  hours  for  boots — 
find  everything  else — eight  saddlers — twenty  haberdashers — 
twenty  book-shops — two  boot  shops  only,  each  with  three  pairs — 
am  directed  as  a  special  favor  to  the  best  in  the  town,  a  court  over 
which  hangs  a  faded  painting  of  a  boot — a  dirty  court  in  which  were 
two  little  children  playing  who  ran  away  up  a  dirty  stairway  where 
I  did  not  dare  to  follow,  so  I  was  obliged  to  go  to  Mayence  to  buy  a 
pair  of  shoes.  Pray,  what  do  the  women  of  Frankfort  do  ?  They 
either  make  their  own  shoes,  or  else  they  go  to  Mayence  to  buy 
them.  .  .  . 

(Diary.  July  loth,  1846.) — The  great  and  glorious  Rhine  is  no 
longer  a  dream  land.  I  half  regret  it,  since  the  image  in  my  mind 
was  by  half  more  beautiful  than  the  reality.  All  has  now  a  defini- 
tiveness  of  aspect;  the  mountains  cannot  grow  higher,  the  castles 
richer,  the  waters  purer,  as  they  could  before  I  saw  them.  But 
what  then  ?  Shall  knowledge  not  be  gained,  because  in  possession 


EUROPE 

it  seems  smaller  than  in  anticipation?  It  still  seems  great  to 
those  who  have  it  not,  and  they  are  most;  therefore  it  is  great.  If 
I  had  considered  all  I  have  gained  in  a  year,  in  a  mass  beforehand, 
I  would  have  thought  it  great.  Now  it  seems  small,  though  it  is 
the  ability  to  speak  two  new  languages,  the  acquaintance  with  six 
capitals  and  six  new  nations  of  the  world,  and  the  sight  of  the  most 
glorious  works  that  human  art  has  ever  accomplished. 

His  last  letter  from  Europe  was  written  from  the  Place 
du  Louvre,  Paris,  to  Gen.  Williams,  July  28th,  1846: 

.  .  .  You  may  have  felt  a  little  anxiety  lest  I  might  have  been 
too  near  the  late  railway  catastrophe.  My  arrangements  brought 
me  over  the  road  just  three  days  after  the  accident,  while  they  were 
yet  removing  the  debris  of  the  broken  carriages.  My  feelings  at 
leaving  Europe  for  home  are  very  peculiar.  Of  course,  I  have  a 
strong  desire  once  more  to  see  old  friends  and  live  over  old 
scenes;  but  you  know,  my  dear  Sir,  as  well  as  I  can  tell  you  how 
the  rich  and  strange  and  varied  sights  of  European  life  charm  the 
young  mind  whether  of  a  mere  observer,  of  a  pleasure  seeker,  or 
of  one  anxious  to  gain  information  on  every  subject  connected 
with  actual  life.  America  is  the  place  to  make  money;  Europe  is 
the  place  to  spend  it.  America  is  the  place  for  a  poor  man;  but 
Europe  is  eminently  the  place  for  a  rich  one. 

There  are,  however,  other  objects  in  this  life  of  ours  besides 
making  money,  and  besides  spending,  and  that  is  what  the  Euro 
pean  is  too  apt  to  forget.  There  is  no  ground  for  his  ambition  to 
work  upon;  there  is  no  field  open  for  his  enterprise,  and  it  is  this 
favorable  contrast  for  our  country  that  annihilates  my  regret  at 
leaving  Europe.  I  could  have  wished  to  have  seen  and  learned 
more  abroad;  but  I  shall  have  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  more 
than  many,  and  what  is  better  of  knowing  enough,  if  properly 
used,  to  be  of  influence  at  home.  .  .  . 

I  hope  to  find  you  well  and  as  comfortably  situated  as  when  I 
left.  It  is  very  hard  to  realize  that  in  forty  or  fifty  days  I  shall  be 

149 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

looking  on  the  scenes  amid  which  I  was  born.  Life  has  been  to  me 
for  two  years  such  a  succession  of  changes  that  it  seems  to  me  as  if 
life  always  would  be  but  the  succession  continued,  nothing  certain 
and  positive  in  it  except  the  great  change  at  the  end.  .  .  . 

He  bought  his  last  note-book  at  Paris  on  the  I5th  of  July, 
and  began  the  entries  with  the  following: 

Probably  my  last  book,  and  this,  if  rilled,  must  be  filled  with 
reflections  on  what  has  been  already  seen,  or  with  passages  on 
water;  if  taken  by  a  privateer,  it  might  make  a  rich  volume. 
These  little  books,  of  which  this  is  No.  5,  in  prices  and  character 
typify  the  nations  of  whom  they  were  bought.  The  first,  stout 
English,  good  paper,  good  binding,  and  a  price  not  too  high,  firm, 
substantial,  and  no  trickery.  The  second,  from  Geneva,  shows 
imitation  of  the  English,  but  at  a  distance;  paper  and  binding 
gross,  but  price  fair.  The  Genevese  try  to  do  well  and  are  gaining 
by  trying.  The  third  is  Roman;  as  such  is  just  fifty  years  behind 
the  age.  One  would  have  found  such  books  in  Paternoster  Row  in 
the  year  of  our  Lord  1796.  The  price  moderate,  because  of  a  class 
not  so  often  sold  at  Rome  as  to  be  allied  with  Italian  trickery; 
that  is  to  say,  the  Italians  are  taught  by  the  demands  of  strangers 
to  cheat,  and  what  is  not  subject  to  strangers'  demands  is  not  sub 
ject  to  cheatery;  and  that  cheatery  is  only  a  habitude  like  washing 
the  face  in  the  morning,  and  which  the  Italian  thinks  infinitely 
more  harmless.  The  fourth  was  bought  at  Berlin,  where  people  do 
not  write,  but  play  on  the  fife.  It  is  not  ruled;  not  because  there 
are  no  rulers,  but  because  the  rulers  are  military  rulers  who  rule 
men's  thoughts  before  they  are  put  in  books,  and  not  men's  books 
before  they  put  down  thoughts.1  It  was  not  high,  because  a  sale 
is  rare  and  the  demand  small.  The  fifth  is  this,  between  the  Eng 
lish  and  Geneva,  but  older  than  both,  showing  that  the  propor- 

1  "The  best  book  that  could  be  found  in  Berlin.  The  capital  of  one  of  the  largest 
powers  of  Europe,  and  no  ruled  blank-book  to  be  found  in  it !  To  five  shops  I  went, 
but  without  success."  (Diary.  June  I2th,  1846.) 

150 


EUROPE 

donate  demand  for  such  things  is  less  at  Paris  than  at  either 
Geneva  or  Liverpool.  It  was  inordinately  high,  in  conformance 
with  the  uniform  and  principled  trickery  of  the  French  shop 
keepers,  who,  if  they  did  not  cheat  strangers  and  could  not  detect 
strangers  to  cheat  would  be  as  good  as  no  shopkeepers  at  all,  and 
not  fit  to  walk  the  boulevards  Sunday  afternoons,  or  to  say  mass  at 
San  Roque.  But  adieu,  all  of  you  !  My  next  will  not  smell  of  the 
Mersey  at  low  tide,  nor  of  the  glacier  water  of  the  Rhone  at 
Geneva,  nor  scent  of  the  Corso  in  the  Eternal  City,  nor  of  the 
camp-fighters  of  the  city  of  Frederick  the  Great,  nor  of  the  cos 
metics  of  the  city  of  cosmetics  in  thought  and  cosmetics  in  action; 
but  of  the  fragrance  of  a  country  beyond  the  water,  fresh  be 
cause  new;  but  growing  great,  and  growing  great  so  fast  that  ten 
to  one  I  may  be  cheated  worse  on  the  Schuykill  or  in  Broadway 
than  on  the  Unterlinden  or  Rue  de  la  Paix. 

On  the  afternoon  of  August  2d,  1846,  he  left  Havre  on 
the  sail-vessel  Burgundy,  with  only  three  cabin  passengers  in 
addition  to  himself.  "Now/*  he  recorded  in  his  note-book 
that  evening,  "I  felt  really  for  the  first  time  bound  for  home. 
Europe  with  all  its  strange  and  attractive  sights  was  indeed 
left.  Again  I  was  to  live  in  what  was  to  me  the  old  world  of 
business  and  of  soberness.  A  bright  two  years  have  gone  by 
in  a  wonderful  world  of  which  the  recollection  will  haunt  me 
forever  and  possibly  some  day  draw  me  back  to  it.  I  am 
sure  I  shall  wish  it.  Venerable  old  Europe,  with  its  compa 
nies  of  nations,  its  relics  of  ages,  its  memories  of  battles,  its 
fountains  of  literature,  its  treasures  of  art !  Who  can  help 
loving  it  ?  Who  can  help  wishing  to  wander  over  its  scenes 
of  glorious  story,  and  having  wandered  over  them  once,  who 
can  help  feeling  a  new  sort  of  fellowship  that  will  make  his 
heart  yearn  even  as  toward  a  departed  friend  ?  I  know  I 
shall  dream  of  the  Coliseum,  and  night-walks  around  the 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

column  of  Antoninus  and  the  Arch  of  Titus,  and  the  fire  like 
a  red  streak  of  the  sky  lifting  out  of  Vesuvius  at  night,  and 
the  blue  glaciers  of  Chamouni.  And  the  little  inns  among 
the  Apennines  will  scatter  themselves  over  the  surface  of 
whole  years  of  recollection  like  the  lighthouses  and  head 
lands  that  stand  out  of  the  water  longest  in  putting  to  sea. 
Spite  of  its  troubles  and  vices,  who  that  has  been  there  can 
help  loving  Europe  ?  And  who  does  not  like  going  home  ? 
And  so,  between  some  passing  regrets  at  leaving  the  Old 
World,  and  bright  hopes  and  wishes  and  expectations  to  find 
again  the  New,  I  snuff  up  the  west  wind  and  the  salt  air  with 
a  cheerful  spirit." 

Elsewhere  he  has  told  how  he  watched  the  fading  shores 
of  France  "until  the  night  stooped  down  and  covered  them. 
With  morning  came  Sky  and  Ocean.  And  this  petted  eye 
which  had  rioted  in  the  indulgence  of  new  scenes  each  day, 
for  years,  was  now  starved  in  the  close-built  dungeon  of  a 
ship — with  nothing  but  Sky  and  Ocean.  Week  followed 
week — still  nothing  but  Sky  and  Ocean: — before  us — behind 
us — around  us — nothing  but  Sky  and  Ocean.  But — thanks 
to  this  quick-working  memory — through  the  livelong  days 
and  the  wakeful  nights  my  fancy  was  busy  with  pictures  of 
countries  and  the  images  of  nations.  Yet  ever,  through  it 
all  ...  the  burden  of  my  most  anxious  thought  was  drift 
ing  like  a  seabound  river — homeward."  1 

The  voyage  was  long.  Donald  relieved  the  tedium  by 
observing  closely  everything  and  everybody  on  the  vessel, 
by  filling  his  note-book  with  sketches  for  later  revision,  by 
reading,  by  preparing  a  number  of  articles  for  the  American 
Review,  and — when  the  tedium  overcame  and  rough  weather 
drove  him  to  the  shelter  of  his  berth — by  wandering  in  fancy 

1  Fresh  Gleanings,  399. 
152 


EUROPE 

among  the  strange  and  brilliant  scenes  which  he  had  left 
behind,  or  treading  once  more  his  favorite  paths  in  Elmgrove 
valley.  Once  the  captain  entertained  the  four  cabin  passen 
gers  with  a  story  of  a  man  lost  overboard,  which  found  its 
way  into  Donald's  note-book  and  later  formed  one  of  the 
most  effective  portions  of  the  Reveries.1  The  note-book  con 
tains,  also,  the  information  that  on  the  I9th  of  August 
Donald  caught  a  butterfly;  "but,"  he  observed,  "it  was 
doubtless  born  on  board."  It  led  the  mind  beyond  seas, 
however,  wherever  its  birthplace !  "Even  it,"  continues  the 
entry,  "proves  a  diversion  and  leads  our  discourse  into  the 
country  beside  running  waters  and  under  cool  trees.  I  never 
shall  shake  off  my  love  for  the  country;  but  shall  now  with 
arms  open  [go]  toward  her,  and  meet  her  features  and  gaze  on 
them  as  on  a  mother,  for  she  has  been  a  mother  to  me  in  the 
rich  consolations  she  has  afforded.  If  a  man  could  only 
throw  aside  this  ungainly  ambition  which  like  a  giant 
controls  his  finer  resolves,  how  might  he  not  luxuriate 
in  the  kingly  pleasures  of  country  retirement!"  Lack 
of  exercise  was  keenly  felt.  "I  never  could  live  without 
exercise,"  runs  an  entry  (August  2ist);  "the  country  for 
me!" 

At  length  the  slow  days  brought  the  Burgundy  near  to 
American  shores,  and  as  Donald  realized  that  soon  he  would 
be  greeting  old  scenes  and  old  friends,  that  strange  aloofness 
which  marked  his  nature — a  peculiar  compound  of  shyness, 
sensitiveness,  and  timidity — began  to  rise  to  the  surface  of 
his  consciousness.  It  is  a  state  of  mind  that  can  be  fully 
understood  only  by  those  to  whom  it  belongs  by  nature. 
Under  date  of  September  9th — two  days  before  reaching 
port — this  entry  occurs  in  the  note-book: 

1  See  pp.  I7S-I78. 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

...  A  stern  Northeaster  .  .  .  blows  us  on;  but  ah  !  it  brings 
to  my  mind  for  the  first  time  those  cruel  New  England  winds 
which  for  two  years  now  I  have  not  felt.  They  bring  up  cheerful 
images  of  firesides  at  home;  but  they  bring  up  also  visions  of  colds, 
sickness,  and  death.  Our  climate  is  the  nursery  of  sickness.  I  fear 
I  will  have  to  leave  it,  even  without  the  further  trial  of  a  single 
winter  !  —  In  the  evening  of  last  night  I  dreamed  of  home,  and 
the  dream,  true  to  all  human  hopes,  disappointed  my  expectations. 
I  found  friends  not  looking  as  well  as  I  had  hoped,  and  not  so  glad 
to  see  me  as  I  had  hoped,  and  even  the  scenes  in  nature  which  had 
been  dreamland  to  me  for  two  long  years  seemed  to  lose  their 
charms  as  they  opened  up  to  the  bodily  eye.  It  was  as  if  autumn 
had  overtaken  summer  in  the  middle  and  the  paths  were  filled  with 
withered  leaves;  the  summer  birds  and  summer  flies, 

Tbv  \d\ov  a  XaXoecro-a,  TOP  evjrrepov  a  Trrepoeaara, 
£evov  a  %etva,  TOV  Qeptvov  Oepivd  — 


Fellow  prattlers,  winged  both,  both  visitants  together, 

had  taken  their  departure.  None  but  croakers  of  the  falling  year 
stirred  among  the  branches;  decay  had  stamped  its  sickly  look 
upon  the  flowers,  and  the  perfumes  were  dying  perfumes.  Harsh 
winds  sighed  and  whistled,  and  there  were  doors  off  their  hinges 
that  slammed  in  the  sad  currents.  Rust  had  gathered  on  my  cher 
ished  fowling-pieces,  and  mould  and  dust  accumulated  thick 
on  the  volumes  I  had  been  used  to  read  with  so  much  delight. 
Even  the  door  of  the  chamber  opened  with  a  sad  creak.  They 
had  lighted  fires  within,  for  there  was  not  warmth  enough  in 
heaven's  sun.  Even  my  old  dog,  Carlo,  had  forgotten  me,  and 
when  I  called  him  to  me  in  the  same  way  I  used  to  do,  he  wagged 
his  tail  as  if  with  sympathy;  but  slunk  away  —  and  he  ran  away 
frolicking  to  another  voice  that  I  did  not  know.  At  this  last 
proof  of  change,  I  dreamed  I  threw  myself  in[to]  my  old  chair  and 
in  the  bitterness  of  my  thoughts  cried  like  a  child  !  Heaven  grant 
these  things  be  not  so  !  Yet  such  is  this  world  and  all  its  hopes  ! 

154 


EUROPE 

On  September  1 1  th,  1 846,  after  a  voyage  of  forty  days — 
the  longest  he  was  ever  to  experience — he  stepped  ashore  in 
New  York.  "Shall  I  say,"  he  wrote  in  his  note-book  that 
evening,  "what  struck  me  most  by  force  of  contrast  with 
what  I  had  left  ?  It  was  .  .  .  the  incivility  of  the  porters 
and  cabmen;  the  lack  of  order;  the  poor  and  dirty  pavements; 
the  low  and  meager  houses;  and  even  Trinity,  when  we  were 
against  it,  seemed  nothing.  But  this  will  wear  off."  He  had 
left  America  almost  two  years  before,  a  provincial — an  edu 
cated  provincial,  it  is  true;  but  a  provincial,  none  the  less. 
He  was  now  returning  with  soul  expanded  and  enlarged  and 
spirit  aflame  with  the  inspiration  caught  by  contact  with 
the  Old  World  civilization.  From  a  state  of  semi-invalidism 
he  had  passed  to  one  of  comparatively  firm  health.  Yet  a 
young  man — but  recently  turned  of  twenty-four — with  such 
expansion  of  soul  and  restoration  of  health,  he  turned  to  face 
the  problems  and  the  duties  of  the  future. 


'55 


THE  UNSETTLED  YEARS 


VI 

LAW  AND  LITERATURE 

The  last  scene  of  summer  changes  now  to  the  cobwebbed  ceiling 
of  an  attorney's  office.  Books  of  law,  scattered  ingloriously  at 
your  elbow,  speak  dully  to  the  flush  of  your  vanities.  You  are 
seated  at  your  side  desk,  where  you  have  wrought  at  those  heavy, 
mechanic  labors  of  drafting  which  go  before  a  knowledge  of  your 
craft. — Dream  Life,  190-191. 

I  have  no  vulgar  ambition,  I  trust,  merely  to  be  the  author  of  a 
book;  had  far  rather  never  be  heard  of,  than  be  the  author  of  a 
poor  book.  Still,  have  a  most  worrisome  ambition  to  be  the  author 
of  a  good  one. — D.  G.  M.  in  letter  to  his  uncle,  Walter  Mitchell 
(1845). 

No  sooner  had  Donald  arrived  in  America  than  the  ques 
tion  of  what  to  do  became  insistent.  It  had  long  been 
troubling  him.  While  yet  in  college  he  began  to  foresee  that 
his  uncertain  health  would  probably  make  it  impossible  for 
him  to  follow  the  plans  and  ambitions  which  he  most  cher 
ished.  The  problem  pursued  him  across  the  Atlantic. 
"Kind  wishes  follow  me,  I  am  vain  enough  to  feel,  as  these 
six  letters  on  my  table  by  last  steamer  testify,"  he  wrote 
from  Liverpool  to  Gen.  Williams  (January  24th,  1845). 
"But  there  is  this  drawback,  that  they  give  poignancy  to 
the  regrets  that  I  have  not  health  for  the  fulfillment  of 
every  reasonable  desire;  and  cannot  pluck  courageously  old 
Father  Time  by  the  forelock  while  he  is  present."  Over  and 
over  the  vexing  question  revolved  itself  in  his  mind.  "What 
my  pursuit  will  be  in  the  event  of  an  early  return  is  ...  un- 

159 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

certain,"  he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Goddard  from  Jersey  (March  2oth, 
1845).  "All  intentions  toward  a  profession  will  be  given  up. 
Business  and  a  farming  life — but  not  at  Salem — will  divide 
the  suffrages.  If  a  good  opportunity  to  enter  business 
offered,  I  should  undoubtedly  lay  hold  of  it;  or,  on  the  other 
hand,  if  I  was  in  possession  of  a  good  farm  near  town,  or 
could  make  a  good  purchase,  my  decision  would  fall  that  way. 
In  either  case,  previous  habits  would  forbid  my  forgetting 
that  the  English  language  is  read  from  left  to  right,  and  that 
writing  characters  belong  to  it,  as  well  as  the  italics."  Four 
days  later  he  was  writing  to  Gen.  Williams  on  the  same  sub 
ject:  "Of  my  course  after  returning  it  is  impossible  to  speak 
with  any  certainty.  Thoughts  of  a  profession  will  have  to  be 
abandoned,  or  else  all  hopes  of  health;  in  such  dilemma,  I 
think  it  will  be  my  duty  to  abandon  the  profession.  Busi 
ness  and  farming  will  remain  to  divide  my  opinions.  The 
last  is  almost  a  guaranty  of  health;  the  first  a  doubtful 
promiser.  My  own  yearnings  are  for  a  country  life,  and 
much  as  I  have  seen  in  England  of  the  splendor  of  pro 
fessional  attainments  and  the  magnificence  of  commercial 
enterprise,  I  have  seen  still  more  to  fasten  upon  me  the  love 
of  country  beauties  and  enjoyments.  If  I  should  pursue 
business  it  would  be  out  of  regard  to  the  wishes  of  friends 
and  in  the  hope  of  rendering  any  pecuniary  successes  which 
might  be  attained  subsidiary  to  those  employments  which 
lie  nearest  my  heart."  And  again  on  the  i6th  of  April  he 
addressed  Gen.  Williams:  "You  do  not  speak  of  my  proposal 
to  sell  the  farm  at  Salem.  I  must  not  think  of  amusing  my 
self  there  again.  I  want  future  employment,  whatever  it  be, 
to  count  on  the  resources  of  after  life.  I  feel  much  as  if  I 
had  been  dilly-dallying  for  years,  and  as  if  it  were  time  to 
act." 

1 60 


LAW   AND    LITERATURE 

Moods  of  depression  frequently  came  over  him,  rendering 
decision  still  more  difficult  and  paralyzing  the  desire  for 
action.  When  the  news  of  Lucretia's  death  reached  him  in 
Jersey,  he  grew  despondent.  "My  cough  has  not  returned 
since  crossing  the  Channel,"  he  wrote  to  Gen.  Williams 
(February  2jd,  1845),  "but  I  never  shall  be  able  to  do  a 
man's  work.  If  I  see  the  age  of  thirty,  it  will  only  be  from 
extremest  care  and  prudence.  Life,  indeed,  has  little  charms 
for  me;  the  wish  to  live  to  do  good  is  not  so  distinct  as  it 
should  be;  and  all  the  friends  who  would  have  watched  my 
course  with  affectionate  pride,  or  interest,  are  gone."  Such 
moods  were  strengthened  by  the  sense  of  isolation  which  he 
experienced  during  his  absence  in  Europe.  A  young  man  of 
his  temperament  needed  the  understanding  sympathy  of 
warm-hearted  friends;  without  it,  he  had  to  suffer  alone  and 
fall  back  upon  the  resources  of  his  own  soul.  One  of  his 
note-book  entries  during  his  residence  in  Paris  (November 
ist,  1845)  gives  some  notion  of  the  thoughts  that  too  often 
oppressed  him: 

All  the  world  intent  upon  their  peculiar  business.  I  alone  with 
out  it !  When,  when  will  it  be  otherwise?  Here  am  I  this  Satur 
day  night,  alone,  worrying  myself  with  thoughts  about  the  future — 
the  deep,  the  sure,  the  swift-coming,  the  all-swallowing  future.  In 
the  gayest  capital  of  the  world,  with  all  around  me  so  gay  that  vice 
is  bliss,  and  suffering  conquered,  and  life  a  fete,  and  smiles  every 
where,  and  tears  nowhere,  I  am  alone  sad — not  a  brooding  sad 
ness;  but  a  sadness  occasioned  by  thoughts  of  opportunities  mis- 
improved,  and  most  of  all,  ambition  ungratified.  Oh !  if  I  had 
only  friends  to  chide  inaction  as  a  mother  or  a  father  or  a  sister 
might  do  it;  to  applaud  conquests  of  difficulties  as  they  only  could 
do  it,  my  life  might  possibly  be  different,  and  my  actions  sometime 
tell  the  story  of  my  life.  As  it  is,  the  future  of  that  life  is  like  a 

161 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

book  tight-closed,  with  leaves  tight-pressed  together.  It  will  re 
quire  energy  and  strength  to  lift  them,  and  when  turned  over  they 
may  turn  out  after  all  but  blank  pages.  Heaven  grant  it  be  not 
so! 

As  he  studied  himself  more  carefully  he  came  to  see  that 
in  all  probability  his  future  course  would  need  to  be  deter 
mined  in  some  degree  by  the  necessities  of  his  nature.  He  was 
beginning  to  understand  that  his  character  was  attaining 
permanence,  and  he  was  rinding  in  it  quite  enough  to  occa 
sion  dissatisfaction.  "I  do  not  believe  many  men  live  who 
could  content  themselves  alone  so  well  as  I,"  he  wrote  to 
Gen.  Williams  from  Sheffield,  England  (July  jd,  1845). 
And  in  response  to  some  remonstrance  of  his  guardian  upon 
his  backwardness,  he  could  only  reply  (July  i5th,  1845): 
"I  regret  more  on  friends'  account  than  my  own,  a  native 
indisposition  and  unfitness  for  society.  ...  I  am,  I  fear, 
too  old  to  change  my  course  of  life."  In  discussing  the  sub 
ject  with  his  uncle,  Walter  Mitchell,  he  analyzed  his  nature 
more  fully.  "Gen.  Williams,"  he  wrote  (July  i4th  ?  1845), 
"is  almost  resentful  of  my  neglect  to  push  myself  into  so 
ciety,  and  you  will  regret  it  as  much  as  he.  There  seems  to 
lie  upon  me  native  repugnance  and  native  disqualification 
for  polite  intercourse.  Not  that  I  deem  myself  boorish  in 
tastes  or  in  sentiment;  but  wholly  inapt  for  those  outward 
forms  which  fashion  has  decided  should  be  the  representatives 
of  a  gentleman.  I  wish  I  could  overcome  my  weakness  and 
my  unfitness  for  my  friends'  sake,  more  than  my  own.  You 
well  know  my  early  separation  from  home,  and  my  contin 
ued  separation  from  all  the  charms  of  a  social  life;  and  I  fear 
it  may  have  an  influence  upon  my  future  life  which  will  re 
quire  a  prodigious  and  constant  exertion  to  counteract.  If 
my  tour  had  been  made  as  one  of  a  party — in  all  whose 

162 


LAW   AND    LITERATURE 

schemes  of  pleasure  I  must  necessarily  have  participated — it 
would  have  helped  me  to  such  exertion  wonderfully;  and  the 
falling  in  with  such  party  might  retrieve  past  errors.  You 
will  give  me  credit  for  frankness  in  thus  putting  the  knife  to 
my  own  gangrene."  Sometimes  he  was  unsparing — almost 
unmerciful — in  self-analysis  and  self-portraiture,  though  in 
all  likelihood  rather  enjoying  the  ludicrous  quality  of  his 
characterization.  "And  now,"  he  wrote  from  Jersey  to  Mrs. 
Goddard  (March  2oth,  1845),  "would  you  really  have  me 
come  back,  and — to  Salem  ?  What !  that  strange,  unman 
nerly,  unsocial,  unfeeling,  heartless,  and  tongueless  toad 
squat  again  in  your  west  chamber!" 

The  call  of  Salem — whose  memories  had  followed  him 
along  every  mile  of  European  travel — was  too  strong  to  be 
resisted;  the  old  scenes  must  needs  be  revisited,  the  old  paths 
trodden  again,  the  final  separation  postponed.  After  arriv 
ing  in  New  York,  he  lingered  only  a  few  days  in  the  city  with 
friends,  and  then  hurried  to  Salem,  where  he  resumed  his  old 
quarters  up-stairs  in  the  west  chamber  of  Elmgrove  house. 
There  during  the  autumn  evenings  he  found  eager  listeners 
to  his  accounts  of  travel  and  adventure.  Shortly  after  his 
return  to  Elmgrove  he  suffered  an  attack  of  measles  which 
made  it  necessary  for  him  to  remain  until  his  recovery  was 
complete.  Doubtless  he  was  not  sorry  for  the  opportunity 
of  prolonging  his  stay  and  of  considering  more  deliberately 
what  course  he  should  follow. 

At  length,  spurred  by  the  necessity  of  seeking  a  milder 
climate,  he  decided  to  turn  southward  and  to  spend  at  least 
a  part  of  the  winter  in  Washington,  D.  C.  He  was  moved  to 
this  step  still  more  perhaps  by  the  desire  to  see  at  first  hand 
the  workings  of  our  governmental  machinery,  toward  which 
he  had  long  felt  a  secret,  though  powerful,  inclination. 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

Doubtless,  also,  he  intended  to  make  an  effort  to  overcome 
his  "native  indisposition  to  society"  by  entering  actively 
into  the  gaieties  of  Washington's  social  season.  Evidently, 
he  was  soon,  in  every  way,  disillusioned.  The  Washington 
of  the  forties  could  not  but  seem  tame  and  crude  to  the  young 
man  fresh  from  the  large  capitals  of  Europe.  Indeed,  the 
capital  of  our  nation  was  then  primitive  and  uninviting.  Re 
flections  of  those  early  days  have  found  humorous  record  in 
the  pages  of  American  Notes  and  Martin  Chuzzlewit ;  in  fact, 
Dickens's  visit  to  Washington  preceded  Mitchell's  by  only 
four  years,  and  judging  by  Donald's  letters  and  articles, 
Dickens's  descriptions  were  not  far  from  the  truth.  Under 
date  of  December  loth,  1846,  he  was  writing  to  Mary  God- 
dard  after  this  fashion: 

So,  Mary,  I  am  here,  and  thoroughly  disgusted  with  Washing 
ton — with  its  hotels — its  buildings — its  streets — its  shops — its 
barbers — its  hack-drivers — its  railways — its  people — its  weather — 
its  comforts — its  society — its  charges — its  talk — its  fashions — its 
changes — its  novelties — its  antiquities — its  bustle — its  rowdyism, 
and  its  life;  and  if  I  had  not  determined  beforehand  to  survive  a 
month  of  it  nolens  volens,  I  would  take  the  cars  to-morrow  for 
Richmond.  I  was  never  so  thoroughly  disgusted  with  any  place 
in  my  life.  Salem  is  a  paradise  beside  it.  Your  roast  mutton  and 
macaroni  were  better  than  my  dinner  and  breakfast  together  here 
at  Gadsby's;  and  as  for  society,  why,  old  Mr.  Tiffany  would  figure 
as  a  Beau  Brummel  beside  some  old  fellows  that  were  at  table 
to-day,  and  as  for  young  bloods,  Lafayette  Latimer  or  Tim  Avery 
could  set  the  fashions  if  they  were  to  stand  in  the  doors  of  the 
tailors'  shops  along  Pennsylvania  Avenue;  and  if  there  are  any  old 
unmarried  women  of  your  acquaintance,  send  them  to  Washing 
ton,  tell  them  to  hang  a  red  and  white  plume  in  their  hats,  and  sit 
in  the  gallery  of  the  House  two  days  in  the  week,  and  they  will  be 
belles,  and  like  enough  before  the  session  is  over,  utterly  married. 

164 


LAW   AND    LITERATURE 

Saturday  night,  Gadsby's  Hotel. — I  was  never  so  homesick  in 
my  life,  not  in  the  most  distant  quarter  of  Europe,  in  Ireland,  or 
Jersey,  or  Austria,  or  Prussia,  whether  alone  or  with  companies,  I 
never  felt  the  sensation  of  loneliness  so  strong  as  here.  I  eat  at 
table  with  forty,  not  one  of  whom  I  know,  and  most  of  whom  I 
would  not  if  I  could;  I  go  into  the  reading  room  and  there  are  a 
parcel  of  vulgar  fellows  smoking.  There  is  no  place  to  fall  back 
upon.  If  I  go  to  another  hotel,  it  is  worse.  In  short,  I  am  driven 
to  my  room  and  driven  to  this  stupid  sort  of  writing. 

Last  evening  I  attended  one  of  the  President's  levees;  talked 
some  five  minutes  with  Mrs.  Polk,  who  is  a  pleasant  sort  of  a  lady; 
chatted  also  with  the  belle  of  the  house,  Mrs.  Walker,  the  wife  of 
the  private  secretary.  The  beauties  were  few;  plenty  of  great  men, 
though  not  much  greater  than  other  people,  after  all.  I  determined 
to-day,  once,  to  pack  my  trunk,  to  run  down  to  Charleston,  and  to 
return  thence  to  New  York;  but  I  was  afraid  of  being  laughed  at  if 
I  could  not  stop  in  Washington  five  days  without  being  so  disgusted 
as  to  run  away. 

You  ask  whom  I  know  as  yet.  Let  me  see:  there  is  Don  Alvra, 
son  of  the  Ambassador  for  the  Argentine  Republics;  a  son  of  Gov. 
Cass;  half  a  dozen  members;  Mons.  Stakkel,  Secretary,  Russian 
Legation.  .  .  .  But  it  is  doubtful  if  I  do  not  lose  my  ballast  again 
before  to-morrow  is  passed  by,  and  start  for  the  south  on  Monday 
morning.  .  .  . 

On  the  i4th  of  December  he  left  Gadsby's  Hotel  and  be 
gan  living  at  the  boarding-house  of  a  Miss  Ulrich,  whose 
establishment  in  I5th  Street  at  the  corner  of  F,  immediately 
opposite  the  Treasury  Department,  was  in  those  days  much 
esteemed.  There  he  came  in  contact  with  more  congenial 
company.  Among  members  of  Congress  who  boarded  there 
were  John  A.  Rockwell,  a  native  of  Norwich,  Connecticut; 
William  W.  Campbell,  later  a  justice  of  the  supreme  court  of 
New  York;  Henry  J.  Seaman,  of  Staten  Island;  and  William 

165 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

Wright,  of  Newark,  New  Jersey.  John  Osborne  Sargent, 
the  well-known  New  York  attorney,  and  Lewis  Cass,  Jr., 
afterward  minister  to  Rome,  were  also  there.  The  diplo 
matic  service  was  represented  by  M.  Stoeckle,  then  secre 
tary  of  the  Russian  Embassy,  later  a  baron  and  himself 
ambassador;  Chevalier  Testa,  minister  from  Holland;  and 
one  or  two  from  the  legation  of  the  Argentine  Republic. 
With  all  of  these  Mr.  Mitchell  formed  acquaintance,  and 
through  their  influence  came  to  a  good  knowledge  of  life  at 
the  capital.  With  such  companionship  he  overcame  his 
repugnance  for  Washington  sufficiently  to  prolong  his  stay 
for  almost  two  months. 

In  addition  to  other  literary  work — he  was  busy  with 
articles  for  the  American  Review — he  found  time  to  write  for 
the  New  York  Courier  and  Enquirer  a  series  of  lightly  satiri 
cal  "Capitol  Sketches,"  which  were  greatly  enjoyed  by  the 
reading  public  and  which  were  extensively  reprinted  in  other 
papers.  Perhaps  the  most  interesting  feature  in  connection 
with  these  "Sketches"  is  the  fact  that  they  were  the  first 
of  Mr.  Mitchell's  writings  to  appear  over  the  signature  "Ik 
Marvel."  For  several  months  he  had  been  seeking  a  suita 
ble  pen-name,  the  two  names  "Caius"  and  "Ik  Marvel" 
occurring  to  him,  as  it  seems,  about  the  same  time,  and  for  a 
while  being  used  concurrently.  The  Marvel  pseudonym  ap 
peared  for  the  first  time  at  the  close  of  his  initial  Washing 
ton  letter,  December  loth,  1846,  and  was  printed  "JK. 
Marvel."  This  error,  occasioned  by  the  typesetter's  mis 
taking  Mr.  Mitchell's  "I"  for  "J,"  was  promptly  corrected, 
and  in  subsequent  letters  the  pseudonym  was  printed 
properly.  For  a  long  time,  however,  a  period  was  used  after 
the  "Ik";  and  sometimes  the  name  was  printed  "Ike." 
Ultimately  the  signature  established  itself  as  "Ik  Marvel." 

1 66 


LAW    AND    LITERATURE 

Some  have  wondered  why  Mr.  Mitchell  chose  this  pen-name. 
He  used  to  say  that  he  had  forgotten  the  circumstances 
which  led  to  its  selection;  he  believed  its  brevity  and  attrac 
tiveness  had  been  the  chief  considerations.  There  can  be 
little  doubt,  however,  in  the  minds  of  those  who  know  his 
fondness  for  Izaak  Walton  and  Andrew  Marvell  that  con 
sciously  or  unconsciously — perhaps  by  inspiration — the 
names  of  those  two  old  worthies  united  in  Mr.  Mitchell's 
mind  to  form  one  of  the  world's  most  widely  known  and  best- 
loved  pseudonyms. 

As  the  weeks  passed,  love  for  Washington  did  not  grow 
upon  him.  Portions  of  two  letters  to  Mary  Goddard  show 
clearly  his  state  of  mind  during  those  weeks,  and  with  what 
difficulty  he  was  working  toward  a  decision  as  to  his  future 
course  of  action: 

(WASHINGTON,  Jan.  2d,  1847.) — A  happy  New  Year  to  you, 
Mary;  nor  have  I  suffered  your  letter  to  "Mr.  Mitchell"  to  remain 
unanswered  so  long  as  mine.  Did  you  really  think  I  did  not 
like  Washington  because  it  was  an  American  city?  Perhaps  I  did 
not  tell  you  as  I  might  have  done  that  Philadelphia  I  liked  as  much 
as  Washington  little.  ...  I  shall  probably  take  a  run  down  to 
Charleston  before  going  back,  having  half  made  an  engagement  to 
that  effect  with  Chev[alier]  Testa,  the  Dutch  Minister. 

Washington  still  seems  dull  to  me,  though  gay  to  most.  I 
sometimes  wish  I  loved  society  more,  but  it  seems  as  if  I  were  too 
old  to  change.  My  acquaintances  thus  far  are  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Dixon  of  Hartford,  Mrs.  Miller  of  New  York,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ames 
(of  the  newspaper  Union),  Mr.  Marsh  and  wife  and  wife's  sister, 
with  whom  I  called  yesterday  upon  the  President  and  half  a  dozen 
high  functionaries.  They,  by  the  way,  are  very  pleasant  people 
(the  Marshes),  Mr.  Marsh  a  thorough  scholar,  has  splendid  library 
and  fine  old  engravings,  and  what  is  more,  drinks  excellent  wine 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

and  gives  good  dinners.  Mrs.  Marsh  is,  as  you  know,  a  scholar 
herself,  and  only  three  days  ago  I  had  an  argument  with  her  on 
studying  Greek,  which,  however,  I  do  her  the  credit  of  saying,  she 
does  not  know;  but  speaks  French  and  German,  and  reads  Spanish 
and  Italian.  She  is  a  pretty  woman  and  so  is  the  sister.  I  have 
also  taken  one  capital  dinner  with  a  Mr.  Johnston,  the  literary 
editor  of  the  Intelligencer.  In  short,  Mary,  if  I  could  only  make  up 
my  mind  to  be  impudent,  unhesitantly  impudent,  drop  my  card  at 
all  of  the  foreign  Ministers  (a  thing  most  common),  I  should  find 
myself,  I  dare  say,  charmed  with  Washington.  But  how  can  I? 
.  .  .  What  say  you  to  my  going  back  to  Europe  in  the  spring  for 
two  years'  study  at  Leipsic? 

Nay,  now,  don't  cry  out  that  it  is  nonsense,  though  I've  not  de 
cided.  If  my  health  is  as  good,  I  shall  commence  studying  either 
in  Norwich,  New  York,  or  Europe,  and  I  shall  call  myself  thence 
forth  a  Democrat.  Another  outcry !  My  convictions  are  strong 
on  those  points.  There  is  no  sort  of  question  but  there  is  more 
unity,  more  entireness,  more  liberality  in  the  Democratic  party 
than  with  the  Whigs.  And,  as  I  have  always  said,  the  measures 
of  the  party  are  more  definite,  and  more  in  unison  with  the  Re 
publican  character  of  the  Government.  Moreover,  the  Whig 
party  is  more  led  by  demagogues,  the  Democratic  party  by  men  of 
weight  of  character;  but  this  is  all  useless.  You  say  nobody  will 
marry  me  in  Connecticut.  To  tell  the  truth,  I  have  thrown  mar 
riage  out  of  my  mind;  my  pride  will  prevent  my  marrying  until  I 
have  a  reputation  with  which  to  secure  a  wife,  and  it  will  take 
about  six  years  of  good  health  to  make  to  myself  a  reputation  fit  to 
marry  with. 

If  I  live  ten  years  with  good  health,  I  mean  to  be  in  Congress. 
You  say  my  head  is  turned  topsy-turvy;  I  am  inclined  to  think  so 
on  rereading  the  last  clause.  But  I  have  never  suffered  more  from 
despondency  than  here  at  Washington,  from  the  fact  of  the  noise 
and  gaiety  in  which  I  could  make  no  part.  Pray  tell  me  how  shall 
I  learn  to  love  this  gay  life  better,  to  talk  nonsense  with  the  women  ? 

168 


LAW   AND    LITERATURE 

Do  you  suppose  I  can  do  it?  Do  you  suppose  I  can  learn  to  make 
myself  agreeable  ?  Then  tell  me  how.  I  have  a  curiosity  to  try 
it.  ... 

I  enclose  some  letters  for  your  private  reading  from  Courier  and 
Enquirer.  I  do  not  wish  it  known  that  I  write  them.  My  publi 
cation  of  book  is  more  and  more  dubious.  I  write  an  article  on 
landscape  gardening  for  Colton's  March  number  [of  the  American 
Review}.  Tell  me  what  you  think,  what  is  thought,  of  "Boldo's 
Story."  Colton  says  it  is  the  best  thing  I  have  published;  cer 
tainly  it  is  the  most  original  and  striking.  .  .  .  Kiss  all  the  chil 
dren  for  me  and  write  me  as  soon  as  possible;  that  is  to  say,  im 
mediately.  .  .  . 

(WASHINGTON,  Jan.  28th,  1847.) — Your  favor  of  a  week  or  more 
since  was  duly  received.  Ten  thousand  things,  good  reasons  and 
bad,  have  prevented  my  replying  before.  I  attended  last  evening 
a  party  at  the  Spanish  Minister's,  at  which  were  present  all  the 
diplomatic  corps,  and  all  the  elite  of  Washington.  The  Spanish 
Minister's  lady  is  Scotch,  and  of  high  birth  and  most  diverse  ac 
complishments;  among  others  is  an  authoress  and  a  good  one, 
speaks  four  languages,  plays  upon  the  harp,  piano,  and  sings,  &c. 
Among  others  present  were  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Webster,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
N.  P.  Willis  (with  the  latter  I  had  a  long  and  pleasant  chat), 
the  British  Minister,  Prof.  Silliman,  Jr.,  Dr  Woods,  President  of 
Bowdoin  College,  &c.,  &c.  So  you  see  I  peep  now  and  then  upon 
the  world. 

The  "Capitol  Sketches,"  which  you  did  not  like,  are  exciting 
more  attention  than  any  series  of  letters  for  some  time.  There  is 
great  curiosity  to  find  out  the  writer;  as  yet,  he  is  not  known  at  all. 
I  have  been  questioned  myself  by  several  ladies,  but  have  uniformly 
evaded  or  denied  it.  So  keep  dark  at  home.  When  I  say  I  wish  a 
thing  kept  secret,  you  know  I  mean  it.  Col.  Webb,  the  editor,  is 
in  the  city  and  has  been  questioned  repeatedly.  He  says  (justly) 
he  did  not  know,  but  that  he  would  write  to  ascertain.  I  have, 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

however,  anonymously  given  him  a  hint  to  guard  the  secret. 
They  have  been  copied  into  papers  in  all  parts:  this  not  in  boasting, 
since  they  are  not  things  I  am  proud  of;  it  only  shows  I  have  taken 
the  right  manner  to  hit  popular  wishes.  My  reputation  through 
the  "Notes  by  the  Road"  [published  in  the  American  Review]  is 
far  greater  than  I  had  any  reason  to  hope  for;  and  I  have  come  to  be 
stigmatized  as  a  literary  man — a  name  I  do  not  covet. 

Mrs.  Marsh's  is  yet  one  of  my  most  pleasant  visiting  places. 
I  have  dined  with  them  twice  and  had  most  capital  dinners  with 
plenty  of  most  excellent  wines.  ...  By  the  way,  speaking  of 
dinners,  you  would  have  been  surprised  to  see  me  dining  a  week 
since,  in  a  private  way,  with  the  editor  of  the  Union  and  Mr. 
O'Sullivan,  the  late  editor  of  the  Democratic  Review!  A  rare  trio, 
was  it  not  ?  But  we  did  not  talk  politics,  and  the  lady  of  the  editor 
is  a  most  agreeable  bride.  My  acquaintance  is  still  limited,  but 
select  so  far  as  it  goes.  I  dine  beside  the  Dutch  Minister  every 
day,  and  we  chat  together  exclusively  in  Italian,  as  he  speaks 
English  imperfectly. 

I  still  have  in  mind  to  go  South  before  returning.  My  ideas  still 
lean  toward  passing  the  summer  with  you  at  Norwich.  Events 
will  determine  if  I  shall  do  it.  I  am  sorry  my  farm  is  not 
sold.  Mr.  Lewis,  of  New  London,  is  here  (Charles),  and  a  very 
pleasant  man  I  find  him.  He  dissuades  me  from  attempting  a  pro 
fession.  So  far  as  support  goes,  there  is  to  my  mind  no  doubt,  now, 
that  my  pen  would  do  it;  but  it  is  a  dog's  life,  and  as  you  love  me, 
never  speak  of  me  as  a  literary  man.  It  shall  be  an  amusement  to 
me  always;  a  business,  never.  I  hear  little  or  nothing  of  friends  at 
Hartford.  In  their  last  they  wanted  to  know  if  my  traveling 
sketches  were  in  a  newspaper  or  magazine !  In  reply,  I  sent  them 
a  copy  of  the  National  Intelligencer •,  one  of  which  I  sent  you.  If 
I  make  my  way  in  the  world,  it  will  be  in  spite  of  them.  And  if  I 
live  and  have  health,  I  will  make  my  way.  Thus  much  of  sad 
egotism;  but  pardon  it,  for  I  think  you  will  read  it  with  mercy. 

Tell  me  now  what  you  all  are  doing.  How  comes  on  Alf  at  his 

170 


LAW   AND    LITERATURE 

school  ?  How  is  Julia,  and  what  is  she  doing,  these  long  evenings — 
reading  Jack  the  Giant  Killer — or  has  she  read  "Boldo's  Story"? 
(pray,  what  do  you  think  of  it?)  I  may  safely  say  it  is  liked 
here.  .  .  . 

It  must  have  been  very  soon  after  the  date  of  this  last 
letter  that  he  left  Washington  for  the  South.  The  journey 
afforded  him  an  opportunity  to  gain  further  knowledge  of  the 
sentiment  in  regard  to  the  war  with  Mexico.  His  knowledge 
of  the  struggle  was  already  extensive.  From  the  vantage- 
point  of  Europe  he  had  followed  with  intense  interest  the 
events  which  preceded  it.  The  battle  of  Palo  Alto  was 
fought  May  8th,  1846,  four  months  before  his  return  from 
abroad.  For  three  months  he  observed  the  war  sentiment  in 
New  England,  and  for  three  more  followed  the  conduct  of 
the  struggle  at  the  seat  of  government.  Now,  as  he  passed 
through  Wilmington,  North  Carolina,  he  saw  troops  gather 
ing  for  service,  and  at  first  hand  learned  the  attitude  of  the 
South. 

Not  many  details  of  this  Southern  journey  remain.  We 
do  know  that  he  formed  valuable  friendships  in  Charleston, 
and  that  he  went  on  to  Savannah,  Macon,  and  other  points 
in  Georgia.  One  incident  of  the  journey  came  in  after  years 
to  have  unusual  interest  for  him.  "It  is  a  curious  fact,"  he 
wrote  about  1898,  "that  at  Charleston  I  delivered  a  letter  of 
introduction  from  Mr.  Chambers,  of  Chambersburg,  Mary 
land,  to  Alston  Hayne,  Esq.,  who  lived  directly  opposite  the 
old  Pringle  house.  Alston  Hayne  was  out  of  town;  but  I  was 
received  very  courteously  by  his  brother,  Dr.  Arthur  Hayne, 
who  invited  me  to  join  him  in  going  to  a  large  reception  that 
evening.  I  was  provided  only  with  travel  wardrobe  and  de 
clined.  The  curious  part  of  this  is  that  directly  opposite 
the  office  of  Arthur  Hayne  was  the  home  of  the  Pringles, 

171 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

and  as  I  stood  talking  with  Dr.  Hayne  at  leaving,  a  carriage 
drove  away  from  the  opposite  house  with  two  young  ladies, 
to  one  of  whom  I  was  married  just  six  years  later,  though  I 
did  not  meet  them  until  the  summer  of  1852." 

About  the  middle  of  March  he  returned  to  Norwich  for  a 
brief  visit,  and  later  went  on  to  New  York  City.  In  the 
meantime  he  had  determined  to  venture  upon  the  publica 
tion  of  a  first  book,  an  enterprise  which  he  had  been  con 
templating,  as  we  have  seen,  with  a  great  deal  of  hesitation. 
The  notion  of  such  publication  had  undoubtedly  occurred  to 
him  very  soon  after  he  reached  England  in  1844,  and  had 
been  strongly  confirmed  by  the  encouragement  of  his  uncle, 
Walter  Mitchell.  "You  suggest,"  he  wrote  to  his  uncle 
(July  i4th  ?  1845),  "a  source  of  pecuniary  profit  in  author 
ship.  I  fear  that  such  an  issue  of  such  pursuit  would  be 
extremely  doubtful.  It  is  by  no  means  the  first  time  the 
plan  has  been  in  my  mind.  My  ambition  is  of  a  sort  that 
keeps  me  and  always  has  kept  me  in  a  fever  of  desire.  But 
unfortunately  it  is  of  the  ' aut  Ccssar^  aut  nihir  kind.  I 
never  look  forward  to  any  third  or  fourth  place  with  any 
complacency.  Hence,  in  proposing  to  myself  any  publica 
tion  of  personal  observations  I  have  great  misgivings  that 
such  may  fall  short  of  public  approval.  My  ambition  is  too 
strong  for  my  abilities  and  like  Richard  III  co'erleaps  itself.' 
I  always  had  most  confidence  in  myself  for  public  speaking 
as  a  ground  of  future  reputation.  My  health  for  the  present, 
however,  will  forbid  all  effort  that  way.  It  was  to  this  end 
all  my  studies  in  college  were  directed.  I  have  thus  far 
taken  brief  note  of  my  observations  through  the  progress  of 
my  travels,  making  a  word,  as  far  as  possible,  the  exponent 
of  a  scene.  I  endeavor  to  seize  upon  those  points  which  will 
be  most  valuable  to  me  as  an  American  and  which  would  be 

172 


LAW   AND    LITERATURE 

most  eagerly  listened  to  by  American  ears.  The  time  for 
amassing  mere  statistical  knowledge  has  gone  by;  geogra 
phers  and  gazeteers  have  monopolized  the  business.  It  re 
mains  for  a  tourist  to  catch  hold  of  social  and  individual 
peculiarities,  to  illustrate  them  by  incident,  to  relieve  them 
by  description,  and  to  bind  all  together  with  easy  and  fa 
miliar  narrative.  Have  I  rightly  epitomized  the  work  to 
be  done  ?  and  will  you  subscribe  for  one  or  half  a  dozen  cop 
ies  ?  But  this  is  joking.  I  am  by  no  means  decided  on  pub 
lishing.  I  have  no  vulgar  ambition,  I  trust,  merely  to  be  the 
author  of  a  book;  had  far  rather  never  be  heard  of,  than  be 
the  author  of  a  poor  book.  Still,  have  a  most  worrisome 
ambition  to  be  the  author  of  a  good  one.  Only  promise  me 
success  and  I  will  set  about  reducing  my  notes  to  duodecimo; 
as  it  is,  they  lie  within  my  little  pocket  memoranda,  whole 
pages  mummied  in  a  line.  You  will  see  some  letters  of  mine 
over  signature  of  Don,  in  the  Commercial  Advertiser  of  New 
York.  I  should  be  gratified  with  your  remarks  upon  them. 
In  the  event  of  publishing,  I  should  like  your  opinion  on 
this  point:  should  an  intended  work  take  the  form  of  familiar 
letters  written  in  the  currente  calamo  vein  of  these  to  you,  or 
the  more  formal  dress  of  sketches  ?  The  first  would  be  more 
in  quantity  and  easier  written;  the  latter  less,  and  require 
more  care.  A  failing  in  the  first  might  be  retrieved;  a  failing 
in  the  latter  would  be  very  discouraging.  Should  a  painter 
try  public  favor  at  first  with  a  cabinet  picture,  or  a  pencil 
sketch?" 

During  his  months  of  wandering  over  Europe  he  had 
formed  some  definite  notions  about  authorship.  He  was 
sincere  in  his  statements  that  he  did  not  covet  the  mere  name 
of  literary  man,  and  that  he  preferred  not  to  be  known  as  a 
writer  unless  as  the  author  of  a  good  book.1  Something  of 

1  See  pp.  116  and  170  of  this  biography. 
173 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

his  conviction  he  confided  to  his  note-book  (July  14th,  1846) 
during  the  last  days  of  his  residence  in  Paris: 

I  begin  to  think  if  it  will  be  worth  while  to  publish  any  notes  of 
travel  when  I  get  back.  If  I  thought  it  would  not  pay  to  the  full, 
I  would  never  undertake  [it].  Nothing  seems  to  me  more  humiliat 
ing  than  the  state  of  an  author  who  cannot  make  a  book  good 
enough  to  pay  for  his  bread.  It  is  a  very  ludicrous  and  ridiculous 
sort  of  charity  which  prompts  a  man  to  publish  his  thoughts  when 
the  public  do  not  care  enough  about  his  thoughts  to  pay  him  either 
for  his  time  or  for  his  trouble.  He  had  much  better  every  way 
drop  his  surplus  money  into  the  parish  poor-box.  In  that  case  he 
may  console  himself  with  knowing  that  no  one  is  pestered  with  his 
thoughts  and  that  some  poor  souls  may  be  stuffing  their  bellies 
with  his  money. 

The  success  of  the  five  instalments  of  his  "Notes  by  the 
Road,"  which  appeared  in  the  American  Review  between 
February  1846  and  January  1847,  convinced  him  that  an 
appreciative  public  awaited  his  best  effort.  In  the  Review 
of  December  1846,  George  H.  Col  ton,  the  editor,  without 
consulting  Mr.  Mitchell,  had  intimated  that  a  book  of  travel 
similar  to  the  "Notes  by  the  Road"  might  soon  be  expected. 
"For  a  narrative  of  pleasant,  minute  observations  written  in 
a  graceful,  subdued  style,  slightly  quaint,  making  the  reader 
an  easy-minded  companion  of  the  rambling  traveler — a  style 
quite  new  under  the  prevailing  taste  for  rapid  and  vigor 
ous  writing — we  venture  to  bespeak,  we  might  say  predict, 
beforehand,  a  most  favorable  reception,"  wrote  Mr.  Colton. 
"The  writer's  quick-eyed  observations  have  covered  many 
parts  of  Europe — the  solitary  heaths  and  hills  of  Scotland— 
the  life  led  in  London  and  Paris — the  quaint  and  simple 
forms  of  things  in  France  and  Dutch-land — the  ever-great 

174 


LAW   AND    LITERATURE 

scenery  of  the  Alps — the  scenes  and  associations,  never  yet 
exhausted,  of  'remembered  Italy.'  With  such  things  to  talk 
about,  and  a  certain  way  of  telling  his  story,  we  do  not  see 
why  his  should  not  be  a  'proper  book/' 

On  the  2id  of  March  1847,  Mr.  Mitchell  addressed  the 
following  proposal  to  Harper  and  Brothers: 

Your  attention  has  been  already  drawn  to  a  series  of  papers 
published  in  the  American  Review  under  title  of  "Notes  by  the 
Road."  It  is  proposed  to  publish  a  book  of  sketches  of  the  same 
general  character.  Its  title  would  be 

FRAGMENTS  OF  TRAVEL,  (or  as  known)  Notes  by  the  Road 

being 
A  NEW  SHEAF  GLEANED  ON  OLD  GROUND. 

TO,  £e  a\\oi  ov  Ka,Te\dj3ovTO }  TOVJWV  fjLvrj/jLrjv  Trotija-o/jiai. 

Herodotus,  Lib.  vi.  cap.  52. 
BY   CAIUS. 

It  would  relate  to  the  Channel  Islands,  Paris,  the  interior  of 
France,  Holland,  besides  containing  glimpses  of  the  mountain 
country  of  Italy  and  Hungary.  True  to  the  motto,  I  should  en 
deavor  to  seize  hold  of  such  objects  of  interest  as  have  been  over 
looked  by  others,  besides  attempting  to  invest  subjects  of  general 
attractiveness  with  some  new  charm.  Such  occasional  legends  as 
might  fall  in  my  way  would  be  worked  over,  and  sometimes  I 
might  amplify  historic  chronicle  into  the  semblance  of  a  tale.  Of 
this  characteristic  you  can  judge  by  matter  already  submitted. 
I  should  also  endeavor  to  graft  upon  the  book  such  observations  as 
might  prove  of  some  value  to  the  reader  who  looked  for  something 
more  than  amusement.  ...  In  general,  I  may  say  there  would 
be  a  leaning  in  style  to  the  manner  of  the  later  French  tourists, 
as  Dumas,  Hugo,  etc.,  with  an  eye  to  the  peculiarities  of  Sterne. 
So  far  of  the  subject  matter  and  style  of  treatment. 

175 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

As  for  the  book  mechanically -,  if  I  cannot  secure  its  good  appear 
ance,  I  am  anxious  for  none.  I  wish  it  printed  in  duodecimo  or 
small  octavo,  on  good  paper  and  with  good  type,  neither  to  be 
poorer  than  in  Ticknor's  edition  of  Motherwell,  or  the  late  edition 
of  Sargent's  sea  ballads.  I  wish  also  the  same  sober  brown  paper 
binding,  and  the  leaves  left  uncut.  I  wish  that  the  various  head 
ings  (as  in  chapter  given)  should  be  designated  by  small  capitals  in 
the  body  of  the  page,  and  that  each  opening  paragraph  should 
commence  with  a  large  capital,  as  in  an  early  duodecimo  edition 
of  Sterne,  which  if  desired  can  be  left  at  your  office.  For  bulk,  I 
shall  not  exceed  300  pages,  nor  fall  short  of  200. 

I  wish  now  to  enquire  if  the  Messrs.  Harper  are  willing  to  pub 
lish  such  a  work  in  such  a  style,  and  if  so,  how  great  a  percentage 
they  would  allow  the  author  upon  the  retail  price ,  and  how  soon  they 
could  undertake  its  publication  ?  As  I  remain  only  a  few  days  in  the 
city,  the  Messrs.  Harper  would  do  me  a  great  favor  in  replying 
before  the  evening  of  Wednesday,  the  24th. 

On  the  24th  the  Harpers  agreed  to  the  proposal,  and  the 
memorandum  of  agreement  was  signed  on  the  26th.  Accord 
ing  to  the  contract  the  author  was  to  receive  a  ten  per  cent 
royalty  on  the  retail  price.  It  appears  that  during  the  spring 
of  1847  there  was  a  press  of  business  in  the  Harper  establish 
ment;  at  any  rate,  it  was  not  until  June  I9th  that  Donald 
reported  progress  to  Mary  Goddard.  "My  book  will  not  be 
out  for  some  time  yet,  perhaps  a  month,"  he  informed  her, 
"though  it  is  now  being  printed.  I  send  you  a  page  and 
proof  of  title,  which,  however,  will  be  much  changed  in  ap 
pearance.  Do  not  show  it,  nor  talk  of  the  book.  Me 
chanically,  it  will  be  handsome."  And  then  follows  a  sen 
tence  which  shows  that  at  some  time  in  the  interval  he  had 
weighed  the  comparative  merits  of  his  two  pen-names,  and 
had  discarded  one.  "You  will  not  fancy  my  adopting  the 

176 


LAW   AND   LITERATURE 

Ik.  Marvel;  it  is,  however,  a  stroke  of  policy."  The  book 
was  published  about  August  ist  under  the  title  Fresh  Glean 
ings,  with  title-page  altered  from  the  form  first  suggested, 
altered  just  sufficiently  to  transform  its  commonplaceness 
into  distinctiveness.  Its  dedicatory  letter  to  "M.  W.  G." 
was  a  merited  tribute  to  Mary  Goddard  which  attracted  the 
particular  attention  of  the  public  on  account  of  its  delicate 
grace  and  rare  style. 

Fresh  Gleanings  met  with  immediate  and  gratifying  suc 
cess.  On  the  1 6th  of  August  Donald  informed  Mrs.  Goddard 
that  it  was  "well  spoken  of"  and  "its  sale  good."  George 
H.  Colton,  always  Donald's  good  friend  from  the  days  of 
their  association  at  Yale,  printed  an  enthusiastic  notice  in 
the  American  Review  (August  1847),  which  was  followed  by 
many  other  favorable  reviews  in  the  leading  newspapers  and 
magazines.  When  the  Harper  edition  was  exhausted,  a  new 
one  from  the  old  plates  was  issued  by  Charles  Scribner  in 
1851,  Mr.  Scribner  having  in  the  meantime  become  Mr. 
Mitchell's  publisher.  The  book  has  retained  a  hold  upon 
public  interest  and  to-day  forms  the  initial  volume  of  the 
beautiful  Edgewood  edition  of  the  author's  works  published 
in  1907. 

August  and  September  of  1847  found  Donald  lingering  in 
his  usual  half-busy,  half-idle  fashion  at  Saratoga,  Richfield, 
Avon,  and  Sharon  Springs,  New  York,  where  as  always  with 
eyes  keenly  observant  he  was  gathering  material  for  the 
humorous  and  satirical  "Marvel  Letters"  which,  at  the  in 
stance  of  Henry  J.  Raymond,  who  was  mindful  of  the  in 
terest  aroused  by  the  "Capitol  Sketches,"  he  was  contribut 
ing  to  the  New  York  Courier  and  Enquirer.  The  success  of 
Fresh  Gleanings  did  not  bring  the  content  for  which  he  was 
hungering.  A  restless,  dissatisfied  mood  was  upon  him. 

177 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

The  inanities  of  society  vexed  him;  "at  Sharon — a  delightful 
place — but  where  unfortunately  I  knew  no  one  .  .  .  the 
company  was  just  of  that  aristocratic  sort  as  made  me  too 
proud  to  make  advances,"  he  confided  to  Mary  (August 
1 6th).  "I  am  angry  with  myself/1  he  continued,  "for  not 
having  made  acquaintance  with  the  people  at  Sharon  .  .  . 
but  dancing,  etc.,  makes  up  so  large  a  part  of  the  oppor 
tunity  at  these  places  that  I  gave  up  the  attack  to  those  who 
go  on  in  legitimate  way.  Indeed,  candidly,  I  think  I  shall 
settle  down  after  all  the  flourish  of  trumpets  a  fretful  old 
bachelor." 

In  October,  accompanied  by  his  brother  Alfred,  he  visited 
Niagara  Falls,  and  travelled  down  the  St.  Lawrence  to  Mon 
treal  with  every  one  of  his  senses  alert,  and  in  just  the  mood 
to  be  impressed  most  forcibly  by  the  scenes  amidst  which  he 
was  moving.  Those  portions  of  Dream  Life  in  which  he 
describes  this  northern  scenery  are  the  fine  flowering  of  this 
autumn  journey.1 

Literary  work  and  random  travel,  however  alluring  and 
engrossing,  were  not  conducive  to  serious  professional  study, 
and  all  the  time  a  conviction  haunted  him  that  he  should  be 
engaged  in  some  such  study  with  a  view  to  future  permanent 
employment.  He  never,  it  appears,  seriously  considered 
literature  as  a  life-work.  Subsequent  developments  empha 
sized  the  firmness  of  his  resolve  that  for  him  literature  should 
be  always  an  amusement,  never  a  business.  Continued 
uncertainty  of  health  and  an  inability  to  decide  upon  a  pro 
fession  delayed  his  plans.  It  appears,  however,  in  a  letter 
to  Mary  Goddard,  that  by  June  I9th,  1847  he  had  decided 
pretty  definitely  upon  law.  It  is  certain  that  upon  his  re 
turn  from  his  northern  journey,  he  began  the  study  of  law  in 

1  See  pp.  157-160,  and  162-165. 

178 


LAW   AND    LITERATURE 

the  Wall  Street  office  of  John  Osborne  Sargent,  whose  ac 
quaintance  he  had  made  in  Washington.  A  classmate  of 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  Mr.  Sargent  was  the  valedictorian 
of  Harvard's  class  of  1 830.  He  was  eleven  years  the  senior 
of  Mr.  Mitchell,  a  man  of  good  judgment  and  great  ability, 
with  an  interest  in  literature  and  journalism  that  must  have 
made  the  two  very  congenial.  He  had  been  an  associate 
editor  of  the  Courier  and  Enquirer  from  1834  to  1841;  in 
1848  was  in  charge  of  the  Battery,  a  Washington  journal  that 
championed  the  cause  of  Zachary  Taylor  for  the  presidency; 
and  subsequently  became  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Republic. 
Mr.  Sargent  should  also  be  remembered  as  the  legal  repre 
sentative  of  John  Ericsson,  inventor  of  the  screw  propeller 
and  of  the  celebrated  ironclad  Monitor. 

However  diligently  Donald  strove  to  apply  himself  to 
legal  study,  he  was  unable  to  find  it  sufficiently  attractive 
to  call  out  his  best  endeavor.  Siren  voices  were  ever  luring 
his  attention  elsewhere,  though  he  strove  manfully  to  resist. 
"You  see,"  he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Goddard  (November  2ist, 
1847),  "I  am  in  the  same  quarters  [90  Franklin  Street],  as 
uncomfortable  and  querulous  as  ever.  Pray  do  not  forget 
your  good  judgment  so  much  as  to  advise  me  to  come  home 
before  I  am  yet  fairly  established.  .  .  .  Indeed,  I  find  if  I 
am  going  to  study  to  any  advantage  I  must  give  up  visiting 
during  the  day;  and  when  evening  comes,  it  is  either  too 
cold,  or  a  pleasant  book  is  too  entertaining,  or  I  [am]  too  blue 
for  easy  chat.  It  is  impossible  to  be  both  a  man  of  fashion 
and  a  student,  and  I  prefer  the  last  both  from  native  inclina 
tion  and  sense  of  duty.  All  your  talk  of  my  Broadway 
promenades  falls  flat;  flatter,  indeed,  than  I  could  wish  when 
I  see  so  many  beautiful  faces  at  every  church  and  have  to 
feel  that  they  are  denied  to  me.  Indeed,  you  scarce  know 

179 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

how  strangely  friendless  it  makes  me  feel  to  go  into  church 
after  church  here  (I  have  attended  three  to-day)  and  play 
the  stranger  at  each,  be  shown  a  seat  by  the  sexton — not 
one  smile  to  welcome  me — not  one  face  that  wears  familiar 
looks.  I  come  away  feeling  like  Cain  or  Ishmael,  and  half 
fear  that  there  is  something  in  my  nature  which  will  make  me 
an  outcast  and  homeless  one  all  the  days  of  my  life.  .  .  . 
Law  looks  dull  and  dismal,  and  stretches  on  in  a  two  year 
reach  of  dullness  before  any  green  thing  appears.  You  do 
not  know  how  country  thoughts  steal  in  upon  study  and 
play  the  very  dickens  with  Blackstone  and  all  the  rest.  It 
half  seems  as  if  I  was  made  for  the  country,  after  all.  It 
is  the  only  pursuit;  that  is,  agriculture,  that  can  ever  en 
gross  me  to  the  exclusion  of  all  others.  I  have  made  no  new 
acquaintances;  have  visited  none;  have  joined  no  club;  have 
not  shook  a  friend  by  the  hand  since  my  last  writing.  I  shall 
hunt  up  Mrs.  Dixon  to-morrow,  Coke,  etc.,  notwithstanding. 
I  think  I  have  written  three  letters  to  your  two.  I  am  glad 
to  hear  the  children  missed  me;  that,  then,  is  a  little  to  re 
deem  the  desolate  waste  of  life." 

Notwithstanding  his  outcast  feeling,  he  enjoyed  the  com 
panionship  of  a  few  congenial  souls.  Chief  among  them  was 
George  Colton,  with  whom  he  passed  many  hours  in  the 
"ramshackle  Nassau  Street  office"  of  the  American  Review^ 
where,  some  time  in  1844,  while  assembling  material  for  the 
first  number  of  that  magazine,  Colton  had  read  to  him  from 
Poe's  manuscript1  the  haunting  lines  of  "The  Raven,"  and 
"as  he  closed  with  oratorical  effect  the  last  refrain,  declared 
with  an  emphasis  that  shook  the  whole  mass  of  his  flaxen 
locks/ That  is  amazing — amazing  I"  With  such  metrical 
dance  in  his  brain,  and  with  such  companions  to  ramble  along 

1  American  Lands  and  Letter  $>  2.  237-238. 
1 80 


LAW   AND    LITERATURE 

the  alluring  paths  of  literature,  it  is  not  strange  that  the  study 
of  law  fretted  Donald.  How  many  hours  he  and  Mr.  Sar 
gent  discussed  literature  and  journalism  will  doubtless  never 
be  known.  It  would  be  interesting  to  learn  whether  there 
was  any  falling  off  in  Sargent's  income  during  the  years 
1847  and  1848  !  In  the  autumn  of  1847  Donald  was  board 
ing  at  the  establishment  of  Mrs.  Barnes  on  Fifth  Avenue, 
between  8th  and  9th  Streets.  Among  his  companions  there 
were  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  who  was  a  nephew  of  Mrs.  Barnes, 
and  the  Rev.  Henry  James,  wife,  and  young  son,  Henry, 
Jr.,  then  four  years  old.  Surely,  during  that  winter  Mrs. 
Barnes's  table  was  one  of  interesting  contacts  ! 

In  addition  to  the  allurements  of  literature,  opportunities 
for  lecturing  now  began  to  present  themselves,  although  he 
was  doubtful  of  his  ability  to  sustain  the  fatigue  of  public 
speaking.  A  letter  of  January  I7th,  1848,  to  Mrs.  Goddard, 
reveals  pretty  clearly  the  confusions  of  the  winter.  "There  is 
nothing  new  to  tell  you,"  he  begins.  "I  have  not  been  very 
well,  and  have  consulted  your  Dr.  Bulkley.  The  weather  is 
detestable.  I  go  to  Albany  next  Thursday  (Jan'y  27th) 
where  I  think  I  shall  remain  four  or  five  days.  Thence  I 
shall  probably  go  to  Norwich  by  way  of  Worcester.  The 
American  Review  remains  in  statu  quo.  I  have  nearly  given 
up  all  idea  of  purchasing  any  portion,  and  with  it  all  idea 
of  writing  for  it.  I  do  not  like  the  present  editor.1  My  story 
of  'The  Little  Shoe'  will  appear  in  Graham  s  Magazine  for 
March.  I  do  not  like  the  idea  of  writing  for  such  a  maga 
zine,  but  the  pay  ($4  per  page)  was  too  tempting.  I  have 
since  had  proposals  made  [to]  me  by  the  attorney  for 
Blackwood  to  write  a  series  of  American  articles  for  that 

1  George  H.  Colton  had  died  December  ist,  1847,  at  the  early  age  of  twenty- 
nine. 

181 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

magazine.  I  think  I  shall  do  so,  but  do  not  mention  it.  I 
shall  be  glad  to  have  a  romp  at  home  again,  though  I  shall 
probably  stay  but  a  day  or  two.  If  I  do  not  find  a  tenant  for 
my  farm  I  shall  advertise  it  to  be  sold  at  auction.  .  .  .  My 
yearnings  still  all  tend  to  a  country  life.  I  have  declined 
since  my  last,  three  invitations  to  parties  and  two  to  dinners, 
as  much,  however,  from  ill-health  as  any  other  reason." 

A  lecture  engagement  had  taken  him  to  Albany,  New 
York.  There  on  the  28th  of  January  he  spoke  before  an 
audience  of  about  1,400,  meeting  with  success  sufficient  to 
assure  him  that  at  any  time  he  desired  he  had  at  command 
another  good  source  of  income.  The  jist  saw  him  in  Nor 
wich,  Connecticut,  whither  the  Goddards  had  removed  in 
the  autumn  of  1847  and  established  a  home  on  Sachem 
Street.  After  a  short  visit  he  returned  to  New  York,  but 
found  the  old  duties  as  irksome  as  ever.  New  distractions 
arose.  The  loss  of  his  old  tenant  increased  his  desire  to  sell 
his  Salem  farm  and  relieve  himself  of  all  necessity  of  looking 
after  what  he  considered  an  unprofitable  investment.  Wash 
ington  was  beginning  to  beckon  him  again.  "It  would  give 
me  much  pleasure  to  go,"  he  wrote  Gen.  Williams,  "but  feel 
as  if  business  duties  should  not  be  yielded  for  it.'1  Turn 
whichever  way  he  could,  there  seemed  to  be  no  open  road 
before  him.  And  then,  just  as  the  whole  situation  was  grow 
ing  intolerable  to  him,  the  spark  of  revolution  in  Europe 
flamed  into  fire,  and  Donald  was  off  to  witness  the  conflagra 
tion. 


182 


VII 

PARIS   IN   REVOLUTION,  1848-1849 

I  am  as  far,  and  farther  than  ever,  from  believing  that  the  mere 
adoption  of  the  republican  form  is  to  heal  the  grievances  of  the 
nation.  I  feel  no  Brougham-like  inclination  to  set  up  my  cares 
under  their  trees  of  liberty;  and  am  more  and  more  convinced  that 
that  little  corner  of  country  called,  after  its  strong  Saxon  nurse, 
New  England  (you  will  excuse  in  me  a  little  leaning  pride  of  birth 
right),  is  in  everything  that  goes  to  make  happy  and  contented  the 
great  mass  of  population,  the  most  unmatchable  piece  of  earth 
that  the  sun  shines  upon. — Ik  Marvel  Letter,  Courier  and  Enquirer , 
Sept.  7th,  1848. 

Donald's  former  residence  in  Paris  (1845-1846),  during 
the  last  years  of  the  Orleans  monarchy,  had  given  him  the 
opportunity  of  familiarizing  himself  with  the  conditions  of 
French  political  life.  Louis  Philippe,  Guizot,  Barrot,  Thiers, 
Lamartine,  and  other  leaders,  were  not  strangers  to  the 
young  New  Englander.  He  had  looked  upon  them  with  his 
own  eyes,  had  studied  their  utterances,  and  had  discussed 
their  policies  with  the  inhabitants  of  rural  France  as  well  as 
with  the  denizens  of  the  Paris  streets.  For  the  king  he  came 
to  have  a  qualified  regard.  "Louis  Philippe,"  he  wrote  in 
1850,  "was  not  all  he  should  have  been,  or  all  that  his  posi 
tion  and  his  means  would  have  made  it  easy  for  him  to  be. 
But  Louis  Philippe  was  a  man  of  talents,  of  perseverance,  of 
system,  and  of  energy  .  .  .  and  when  in  princely  station 
there  meet  us  such  capacity,  such  development,  and  such 
culture  as  belonged  to  the  head  of  the  house  of  Orleans,  it 

183 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

becomes  us  to  think  that  they  were  gained,  as  they  must  al 
ways  be  gained,  by  determined  effort."1  When,  therefore, 
during  the  early  months  of  1848  the  news  began  to  arrive 
from  Europe  of  banquetings,  of  Louis  Philippe's  abdication, 
of  the  formation  of  a  provisional  government,  and  the  anar 
chic  conditions  that  followed  in  its  wake,  it  was  not  in  Don 
ald's  nature,  restless  and  dissatisfied  as  he  then  was,  to  re 
sist  such  opportunity  to  witness  history  in  the  making. 

In  the  dedicatory  letter  of  The  Battle  Summer,  addressed 
to  his  college  friend,  Joseph  Few  Smith,  Donald  tells  in  his 
own  inimitable  way  the  manner  of  his  departure  for  the 
scenes  of  revolution: 

You  know  that  in  the  early  spring  of  1848  I  was  immured  in  the 
dim  office  of  a  city  attorney;  and  that  the  alarum  of  the  new-born 
Republicanism  of  France  first  came  upon  my  ear  under  the  cob 
web  tapestry  of  a  lawyer's  salon. 

To  me,  with  whom  the  memories  of  courts  and  monarchic 
splendors  were  still  fresh  and  green,  such  sudden  news  was  startling. 
I  tortured  my  brain  with  thinking  how  the  prince  of  cities  was  now 
looking — and  how  the  shops — and  how  the  gaiety?  I  conjured  up 
images  of  the  New  Order,  and  the  images  dogged  me  in  the  street, 
and  at  my  desk,  and  made  my  sleep  a  nightmare !  They  blurred 
the  type  of  Blackstone,  and  made  the  mazes  of  Chitty  tenfold 
greater.  The  New  Statutes  were  dull,  and  a  dead  letter;  and  the 
New  Practice  worse  than  new.  For  a  while  I  struggled  manfully 
with  my  work;  but  it  was  a  heavy  schoolboy  task — it  was  like  the 
knottiest  of  the  Tusculan  Questions,  with  vacation  in  prospect. 

The  office  was  empty  one  day:  I  had  been  breaking  ground  in 

Puffendorf — one  page — two  pages — three  pages — dull,  very  dull, 

but  illumined  here  and  there  with  a  magic  illustration  of  King 

Louis,  or  stately  poet  Lamartine,  when  on  a  sudden,  as  one  of  these 

illustrations  came  in,  with  the  old  Palais  de  Justice  in  the  back- 

1  See  The  Lorgnette,  2.253. 

184 


PARIS    IN    REVOLUTION,    1848-1849 

ground,  I  slammed  together  the  heavy  book-lids,  saying  to  myself: 
Is  not  the  time  of  Puffendorf,  and  Grotius,  and  even  amiable, 
aristocratic  Blackstone  gone  by?  And  are  there  not  new  kingdom- 
makers,  and  new  law-makers,  and  new  code-makers  astir,  muster 
ing  with  all  their  souls  and  voices,  such  measures  of  Government 
as  will  by  and  by  make  beacons  and  maxims?  And  are  not  these 
New-men  making  and  doing  and  being  what  the  Old-men  only 
wrote  of? 

Are  not  those  people  of  France  and  wide-skirted  German-land, 
lit  up  by  hatred  of  aggression  and  love  of  something  better,  putting 
old  law  and  maxim  and  jurisprudence  into  the  crucible  of  human 
right,  and  heating  them  over  the  fire  of  human  feeling,  and  pouring 
them  into  the  mould  of  human  judgment,  to  make  up  a  new  casting 
of  Constitutional  Order? 

And  as  for  the  New  Practice,  is  there  not  a  new  practice  evolv 
ing  over  seas — not  very  precise,  perhaps,  about  costs  and  demurrers 
and  bills  of  exception — but  a  practice  of  new-gained  rights,  new- 
organized  courts,  new-made  authorities,  new-wakened  mind — in 
short,  the  whole  practice,  not  only  of  Courts,  but  of  Human  Na 
ture,  and  Passion,  and  Power? 

Are  they  not  acting  out  over  there  in  France,  in  the  street,  in 
the  court,  and  in  the  Assembly,  palpably  and  visibly,  with  their 
magnificent  Labor  Organizations,  and  Omnibus-built  barricades, 
and  oratoric  strong-words,  and  bayonet  bloody-thrusts,  a  set  of 
ideas  about  constitutional  liberty,  and  right  to  property,  and 
offences  criminal,  and  offenses  civil,  wider,  and  newer,  and  richer 
than  all  preached  about,  in  all  the  pages  of  all  these  fusty  Latinists? 

And  I  threw  Puffendorf,  big  as  he  was,  into  the  corner, 

and  said 1  will  go  and  see ! 

That  very  evening,  under  a  soft,  summer-like,  smoky  sky  of 
early  spring,  I  set  off  to  bid  my  few  friends  adieu.  It  was  an  hour 
or  two  past  midnight  when  I  reached  the  little  town;  (you  know  it — 
how  pretty  and  how  fresh  it  is !)  Not  a  soul  was  stirring;  the 
streets  were  silent;  the  houses  were  dark;  only  a  little  mingled 

185 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

light  of  moon  and  stars  was  playing  on  the  roofs,  or  dappling  the 
ground  that  lay  under  the  long  lines  of  elms. 

My  dog  met  me  with — first,  a  growl,  and  then  a  bound  of  wel 
come.  I  crawled  in  at  a  window — groped  my  way  to  a  chamber, 
and  threw  myself  half-dressed  upon  the  bed  to  dream  of  gay  Paris 
streets. 

The  birds  wakened  me.  Then  came  the  rich,  quick  welcome — 
the  glad  surprise — the  throng  of  kind  inquiries 

The  next  day  I  was  tramping  over  the  old  farm-land;  sitting 
upon  the  rocks  under  the  familiar  trees;  drinking  from  the  spring 
once  so  grateful  in  the  heats  of  summer  labor. 

The  morning  after,  I  shook  your  hand  upon  your  doorstep  in 
Waverley  Place:  by  noon  I  was  on  ship-board;  and  at  sunset  at 
anchor  off  the  Hook. 

By  eight  next  day  I  was  listening  in  dreamy  reverie  to  the  tug 
and  chorus  of  the  sailors  at  the  windlass — an  hour,  and  the  royals 
were  sheeted  home — another,  and  the  Highlands  of  Neversink  had 
sunk,  and  I  was  fairly  bound  for  France ! 

You  know  now  the  history  of  my  sudden  leave. 

It  was  through  a  window  of  Mary  Goddard's  home  on 
Sachem  Street,  in  "the  little  town"  of  Norwich,  that  he 
crawled  that  morning  of  early  spring.  And  it  was  over  the 
Salem  farmlands  that  he  tramped  next  day  by  way  of  fare 
well  to  old  times  and  old  scenes.  He  loved  the  "rich,  quick 
welcomes,"  the  "glad  surprises"  that  followed  upon  such 
sudden  irruptions;  and  it  is  sure  that  both  the  Goddards  and 
the  good  old  Gen.  Williams  were  well  surprised  on  this  occa 
sion.  During  those  restless  years  it  seems  quite  certain  that 
Donald  found  relief  in  quick  change  of  scene  and  in  the 
stimulus  of  sharp  adventure.  His  sailing  was  from  New 
York  on  the  Grinnell  &  Minturn  Packet  Ship  Prince  Albert, 
about  May  loth,  1848.  He  arrived  in  London  at  three 
o'clock,  Sunday  afternoon,  June  4th. 

186 


PARIS    IN    REVOLUTION,    1848-1849 

He  amused  himself  during  a  part  of  the  voyage  by  writing 
Mary  Goddard  a  letter  in  diary  fashion.  "Pray  tell  me," 
he  began,  "what  people  say  of  my  sudden  departure.  I 
daresay  many  of  them  will  set  it  down  to  some  speculative 
enterprise,  or  government  employ.  .  .  .  The  General  was 
taken  so  much  by  surprise  at  my  determination  that  he  had 
neither  arguments  to  combat  it,  or  suggestions  to  favor  it." 
As  he  approached  the  coast  of  England  another  peculiar  ele 
ment  of  his  character  began  to  assert  itself;  namely,  a  longing 
to  be  back  amid  scenes  among  which  he  had  just  been  living 
in  only  a  half-contented  way.  This,  too,  is  a  state  of  mind 
common  to  those  who  possess  such  a  delicately  sensitive 
temperament  as  belonged  to  Mr.  Mitchell.  "To-day  June 
ist  we  made  the  first  land,"  he  wrote.  "It  is  as  usual  on  the 
English  coast,  rainy;  a  feeling  of  half  homesickness  comes 
over  me  even  here,  but  it  is  too  late  now  to  waver.  What  I 
shall  come  back,  or  when,  is  wrapped  in  great  uncertainty. 
.  .  .  I  shall  remain  here  (in  England)  until  after  the  I2th 
[of  June],  at  which  time  is  to  be  another  great  Chartist  dem 
onstration,  which  I  fear  will  be  more  bloody  than  the  first. 
After  that  time  I  shall  probably  go  to  Paris  and  pass  re 
mainder  of  the  summer." 

He  had  somehow  found  time  in  the  brief  interval  before 
sailing  to  complete  arrangements  for  reporting  the  progress 
of  events  in  Paris  to  the  New  York  Courier  and  Enquirer. 
He  did  not,  therefore,  linger  long  in  England.  It  was  proba 
bly  not  later  than  June  ijth  when  he  arrived  in  Paris  and 
began  immediately  to  seek  out  positions  nearest  to  the  revolu 
tionary  disturbances.  During  his  nine  months  in  Paris  he 
had  in  all  six  different  places  of  residence.  At  first  he  was 
quartered  in  a  hotel  in  Faubourg  St.  Honore  which  he  left 
for  lodgings  in  the  Rue  du  Helder  at  the  corner  of  the  Boule- 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

vard  des  Italians,  where  he  stayed  during  the  three  slaughter 
days,  June  2jd,  24th,  and  25th;  then  after  brief  periods  in 
the  old  Rue  St.  Thomas  du  Louvre,  the  Rue  de  Bucy,  and 
the  Rue  de  Seine,  he  secured  permanent  quarters  at  7  Rue 
de  Tournon,  on  the  south  side  of  the  Seine. 

Within  two  weeks  after  his  arrival  in  Paris  the  struggle 
between  the  executive  committee  and  the  assembly  had 
reached  a  crisis.  On  the  2ist  of  June  the  assembly  forced 
the  committee  to  decree  the  closing  of  the  national  work 
shops,  and  on  the  2jd  began  that  sanguinary  struggle  be 
tween  the  disaffected  workmen  and  the  forces  of  govern 
ment,  which  did  not  entirely  close  until  the  26th.  Every 
detail  of  the  conflict  that  he  could  gather  by  direct  observa 
tion,  or  report,  appeared  in  his  very  interesting  letter1  to  the 
Courier  and  Enquirer.  "The  four  days  of  June  1848,  of 
which  I  have  .  .  .  given  you  some  account,  will  hence 
forth,"  he  wrote,  "be  cited  as  one  of  the  terrible  epochs  in 
French  history.  The  period  has  been  characterized  by  the 
spirit  of  the  revolutions  of  the  last  century;  and  the  insur 
gents,  in  the  sternness  of  their  action  and  in  the  blackness 
of  their  cruelties  have  brought  to  life  again  the  demon  spirit 

of '93-" 

On  the  26th  of  June  he  despatched  a  message  to  Mary 
Goddard.  "  I  am  writing/'  he  began,  "  in  the  midst  of  dread 
ful  revolution.  The  report  of  it  will  have  reached  you  before 
this  letter,  and  may  have  occasioned  you  some  anxiety  on 
my  account;  nor  do  I  now  know,  indeed,  what  will  be  the  end 
of  the  matter,  or  under  what  circumstances  I  may  be  placed 
at  the  time  this  letter  is  mailed.  At  present,  I  am,  in  common 
with  all  the  idle  residents  of  Paris,  a  prisoner — confined  to 
one  narrow  street  of  a  hundred  yards  in  length.  The  streets 

1  Published  in  Courier  and  Enquirer,  July  I4th,  1848. 
188 


PARIS    IN    REVOLUTION,    1848-1849 

are  all  of  them  occupied  by  soldiery,  and  I  see  nothing  from 
my  window  but  marches  and  counter-marches  and  troops  of 
dragoons  and  litters  of  wounded  men  and  hearses.  All  day 
yesterday  and  the  day  before,  cannon  and  musketry  were 
heard  in  all  directions,  nor  has  it  entirely  ceased  to-day. 
For  a  full  account  of  what  I  am  seeing,  you  must  look  in  the 
columns  of  the  Courier.  29th  June.  The  battle  is  over, 
Mary,  and  I  am  safe.  There  has  been  dreadful  work;  from 
10  to  20,000  killed,  and  twice  as  many  wounded.  Day  be 
fore  yesterday  I  went  over  the  scene  of  the  slaughter  in  a 
throng  of  soldiers  and  curious  lookers-on.  Houses  were  pil 
laged  and  shattered  with  balls,  the  pavement  red  with 
blood,  every  window  broken,  and  weeping  faces  in  almost 
every  door.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  scene  will  not  be  re 
newed,  and  if  so,  that  I  escape  as  well  as  before.  But  do 
not  be  in  any  alarm.  My  quarter  is  a  very  safe  one,  not 
very  liable  to  such  disturbance  and  at  the  same  time  giving 
a  good  view  of  what  is  passing  in  the  city.  .  .  .  You  must 
excuse  my  writing  a  very  short  and  meagre  letter  by  this 
steamer  as  I  am  rendered  nervous  by  the  excitement  of  the 
time." 

He  passed  a  disturbed  summer  and  autumn,  but  con 
tinued  very  faithfully  to  report  for  the  Courier  the  ebb  and 
flow  of  the  troublous  times.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  how 
this  experience  quickened  and  confirmed  his  love  of  quietness, 
beauty,  and  order.  It  was  for  him  a  revealing  and  a  confirma 
tion  of  desires.  As  the  Prince  Albert  proceeded  up  the 
Thames  in  early  June,  Donald  gloried  in  all  the  charms  of  the 
English  landscape.  "The  country  ...  up  the  Thames  is 
looking  delightfully,"  he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Goddard;  "all  my 
old  country  love  comes  back  with  it."  And  as  he  sat  in  his 
room  in  the  Rue  du  Helder  amid  the  boom  of  cannon  and 

189 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

the  rattle  of  musketry  during  those  June  days  of  battle  his 
thoughts,  like  singing  larks,  were  circling  far  above  the  noise 
of  conflict,  and  longing  for  green  fields  and  babbling  brooks. 
"I  don't  know  how  it  is/'  he  confessed  to  Mary  in  his  letter 
of  June  26th,  "  but  when  I  get  here  in  the  midst  of  the  noise 
and  bustle  of  Europe,  I  sigh  more  than  ever  for  a  quiet  coun 
try  home,  and  determine  over  and  over  to  enjoy  it  when 
I  return/' 

The  old  first  rapture  at  sight  of  Paris  he  could  not  recall. 
"You  do  not  know  how  Paris  nowadays  differs  from  the 
old  one,"  he  told  Mary  (July  ist,  1848);  "nothing  now  of 
that  gaiety — nothing  of  that  liveliness  belonging  to  every 
thing,  streets,  houses,  horses,  dogs,  women,  sunlight,  which 
used  to  infuse  itself  into  the  temper  of  even  so  dull  a  brute  as 
I,  and  make  me  forget  all  about  my  Saxon  lineage  and  New 
England  education.  But  I  remember  both  with  pride  now, 
seeing  as  I  do  so  much  that  is  irrational  and  impracticable 
entering  into  the  complexion  of  French  character,  when  there 
is  really  any  need  of  serious  effort.  In  short,  I  have  got  over 
much  of  my  old  love  for  the  belle  city,  and  shall  come  back 
(an't  you  glad  ?)  a  little  more  satisfied  with  the  homespun 
jacket  of  New  England  make.  I  do  not  know,  indeed,  but 
my  love  for  the  world,  now  seeing  it  in  some  of  its  worst 
phases,  is  diminishing  in  the  same  proportion  (haven't  I  said 
as  much  in  this  letter  before  ?)  So  look  out  for  me  a  little 
farm  where  I  may  gather  together  my  books  and  chattels, 
hang  up  my  chamois  skin  and  knapsack  together,  keep  my 
gun  and  fishing  tackle  in  order,  my  pipe  ready  for  occasional 
service,  and  so  live  out  my  span  doing  good  in  such  humble 
way  as  falls  to  my  allotment.  Do  you  say  yes  ?" 

The  political  events  of  the  summer  did  not  please  him. 
His  study  of  conditions  led  him  to  believe  that  the  time  for 

190 


PARIS    IN    REVOLUTION,    1848-1849 

the  formation  of  an  enduring  republic  was  not  yet  ripe.  In 
his  Courier  letter  of  July  2oth,  1 848,  he  dwelt  at  length  upon 
his  analysis  of  the  situation: 

While  the  lovers  of  order  are  strongest,  discipline  will  be  main 
tained  at  all  hazards,  however  much  the  aggrieved  may  trouble,  or 
however  loudly  they  may  resent  it.  With  the  Communists  upper 
most,  heaven  only  knows  what  new  state  of  terrorism  might  dawn 
on  France  !  There  might  be  no  Hebert,  linking  atheism  to  cruelty; 
and  no  Murat,  strangely  conscientious  in  doing  murder;  but  the 
notions  of  a  Lagrange  and  a  Prudhon  grafted  upon  the  spirit  of 
the  June  barricades  would  make  a  complication  of  wrong  in 
thought,  and  wrong  in  action,  that  would  inevitably  shock  every 
feeling  of  humanity,  and  trample  every  dictate  of  religion  under 
foot. 

But  an  American  would  be  unjust  to  his  origin  and  privileges, 
if  he  had  not  some  consciousness  of  a  sort  of  moral  training  which 
is  his  by  birthright,  and  which  gives  him,  so  to  speak,  a  republican 
habit;  a  habit  of  controlling  his  desires  and  impulses;  a  habit  of 
looking  up  to  those  wiser  than  himself;  and  a  habit  of  belief  that 
there  are  some  wiser  than  himself.  The  French  peasant  has  not 
enough  of  moral  culture  to  lay  a  strong  hand  upon  his  own  passions; 
nor  does  he  possess  the  popular  education  which  would  better  fit 
New  England  boys  of  fourteen  to  erect  a  government  for  them 
selves,  than  the  abettors  of  the  insurrection.  In  France,  there  is 
no  "schoolmaster  abroad."  Nor  is  there  in  France  that  firm  and 
active  religious  sentiment  which  is  no  small  safeguard  to  our  insti 
tutions  at  home. 

A  nation  that  will  run  as  wildly  and  heedlessly  into  atheism  as 
the  French  did  under  the  crazy  leading  of  Chaumette  and  a  rene 
gade  German;  and  again  within  the  year  almost,  into  the  worst 
species  of  deism,  as  they  did  under  the  guidance  of  Robespierre, 
will  not  be  very  apt  to  control  its  desires  when  it  has  power  to 
manifest  them.  Those  who  will  bow  down  to  a  harlot  in  a  white 

191 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

robe  and  call  her  Reason,  will  be  very  apt  to  bow  down  to  passion 
when  it  is  throned  in  their  own  bosoms,  and  call  it  Right. 

Nor  are  the  French  much  changed  in  religious  feeling.  Only 
within  the  week,  M.  Prudhon  has  spoken  without  rebuke  of 
Christianity  as  a  dogma  nearly  worn  out.  Those  who  do  not  re 
spect  the  institutions  of  heaven  will  hardly  respect  those  of  their 
own  making. 

Do  not  think  me  monarchic  in  thus  declaring  my  firm  conviction 
that  the  French  are  at  present  unfit  for  a  republic — certainly  for  one 
so  indulgent,  and  presuming  so  much  upon  the  good  intentions  of 
its  citizens,  as  our  own.  They  may  win  fitness  for  it;  but  they  will 
not  win  it  by  firing  at  a  target,  and  secreting  fusils,  and  crying, 
Long  life  to  the  Republic !  They  will  not  become  fit  by  studying 
treatises  which  advocate  a  dissolution  of  property;  and  which  ex 
cite  passion  by  declaiming  about  existing  misery.  They  need  rather 
to  gain  a  firm  self-denial,  a  trustfulness  in  the  future  that  shall  not 
be  eternally  interrupted  by  a  clamor  about  a  little  present  hard 
ship;  they  need  a  little  more  of  a  rigid,  old-fashioned,  commonsense 
teaching  that  shall  not  so  much  flatter  their  vanity  as  acquaint 
them  with  their  weakness.  They  need  to  cultivate  a  respect  for 
what  is  sacred,  and  a  love  for  what  is  good.  French  statesmen 
should  give  up  treating  of  unities  and  indivisibilities;  and  think 
more  of  things  possible  and  practicable.  They  should  leave  off 
acting  as  if  no  republic  ever  existed  before,  and  be  content  to  lend 
an  ear  to  what  other  nations  may  have  done. 

It  should  not  escape  their  notice  that  a  country  calling  itself 
the  United  States  of  America  has  struggled  boldly  and  bravely  up 
through  some  sixty-odd  years  of  experience  in  this  same  matter  of 
republicanism;  never  once  putting  down  from  its  brawny  shoulder 
that  same  old  republican  banner  on  which  was  written  in  the  be 
ginning,  Liberty  and  Equality !  Such  experience,  it  would  seem, 
might  offer  something  worthy  of  their  attention.  Surely  they 
might  venture  upon  careful  study  of  our  Constitution,  and  occa 
sional  reading  of  Story.  M.  Cormenin  would  thus  find  his  igno- 

192 


PARIS    IN    REVOLUTION,    1848-1849 

ranee  set  right,  and  M.  Cormenin  would  be  honored  in  sitting  at 
the  feet  of  such  Gamaliel ! 


With  the  exception  of  three  weeks  spent  in  the  vineyard 
region  of  Bordeaux  in  company  with  a  college  friend,  Mr. 
John  Perkins,  of  Louisiana,  he  lived  continuously  in  Paris. 
Nor  was  he  idle.  First  of  all,  he  applied  himself  to  the  Courier 
reporting  until  the  end  of  the  year;  his  last  letter  but  one,  an 
account  of  the  election  of  Louis  Napoleon  Bonaparte  to  the 
presidency  of  France,  bearing  date  of  December  28th,  1848. 
A  letter  to  Mrs.  Goddard  of  November  I5th  tells  of  his  other 
activities.  "My  time  I  mean  to  occupy  constantly  this 
winter  in  work  of  some  sort.  Chiefest  among  it,  I  shall  at 
tend  law  lectures  three  times  a  week,  agriculture  twice  a 
week,  physics  twice  a  week,  and  history  twice  a  week.  Aside 
from  this,  I  shall  have  more  visiting  on  my  hands  than 
usual  .  .  .  there  are  .  .  .  one  or  two  English  families  whom 
I  shall  see  often,  and  shall  go  frequently  to  the  [United  States] 
Consul's,  where  I  meet  very  many  Parisians,  and  a  very 
select  circle  .  .  .  nor  do  I  know  how  I  could  gain  more,  if 
as  much,  benefit  in  any  part  of  the  United  States,  as  here. 
Lectures  are  to  be  heard  in  every  branch  of  science,  and  in 
every  profession;  the  language  to  be  gained;  the  formation 
of  the  Government  to  be  noted,  &c.,  &c.;  in  short,  I  should 
consider  myself  as  throwing  away  advantages  if  I  were  to 
go  home  this  autumn  for  no  other  reason  than  is  now  ap 
parent.  .  .  .  You  must  not  for  a  moment  think  that  this 
winter  is  squandered  upon  amusements.  I  am  as  seriously 
and  thoroughly  at  work  in  gaining  information  and  general 
knowledge  as  I  ever  was  in  my  life.  I  experience  the  same 
sense  of  the  loss  of  time  when  idling  that  you  remember  I 
used  to  at  home." 

193 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

A  feature  that  annoyed  him  very  greatly  during  almost 
the  entire  period  of  his  absence  was  the  scarcity,  or  late 
arrival,  or  entire  failure  to  arrive,  of  letters  from  the  home 
friends.  His  energetic  complaints  seem  humorous  enough, 
now,  after  the  lapse  of  years;  but  for  him,  at  that  time,  alone 
and  surrounded  by  the  dangers  of  revolution,  often  ill,  and 
generally  in  low  spirits,  the  matter  was  serious.  His  letters 
of  remonstrance  are  particularly  self-revelatory.  "If  I  were 
to  fall  victim  of  the  insurrections,"  he  wrote  to  Mary  (July 
i4th,  1848),  "there  would  not  be  one  to  save  me  from  the 
terrors  of  the  morgue.  You  can  imagine,  then,  how  much  a 
letter  is  appreciated,  as  it  is  the  only  link  that  binds  me  to  the 
world  of  acquaintanceship.  I  am  not  well,  either,  and  do  not 
go  about  a  great  deal.  Perhaps  it  is  safer  for  me.  A  horrible 
plot  was  announced  yesterday  to  have  been  detected.  All 
the  young  girls  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  insurgents  (at  the 
various  boarding  schools)  were  to  have  been  captured  and 
placed  upon  the  barricades  to  prevent  the  firing  of  the  troops 
until  the  insurgents  could  mature  their  plans.  It  has  so 
frightened  the  friends  of  many  that  the  schools  are  becoming 
deserted.  Paris,  too,  itself  is  losing  population  every  day; 
hundreds  and  hundreds  go  every  day.  It  will  soon  be  popu 
lated  only  by  insurgents  and  troops,  and  the  few  strangers 
will  stand  between  the  fire.  I  will  go  on  frightening  you  un 
less  you  write  me,  and  unless  you  write  me  long  letters. 
There  is  no  occasion  for  my  writing  very  long  ones,  since  you 
find  my  whereabouts  and  see  what  I  am  seeing  every  week  in 
the  Courier.  ...  It  is  as  beautiful  an  afternoon  as  you  can 
possibly  imagine;  sky  clear,  and  sun  not  too  hot.  Yet  the 
streets  are  almost  deserted,  and  I  never  experienced  a  feeling 
of  greater  loneliness  in  my  life.  No  wonder  there  should  be 
empty  streets  where  so  much  blood  has  been  shed  within  a 

194 


PARIS   IN    REVOLUTION,    1848-1849 

month.  Two  or  three  times  on  crossing  the  Place  du  Car 
rousel  I  have  stopped  to  look  at  the  blood  stains — great, 
black,  hideous  looking  stains  at  which  the  dogs  come  even 
now  and  lick  and  snuffle.  Yet  they  have  been  washed  and 
scoured  every  morning  for  three  weeks.  They  are  the  stains 
of  that  conflict  between  the  guard  and  the  prisoners  of  which 
there  is  some  account  in  my  letter  by  this  steamer.  Seventy 
dead  bodies  were  carried  off  the  spot  the  next  morning.  It 
was  just  under  the  windows  I  held  when  I  was  last  in  Paris, 
26  St.  Thomas  du  Louvre.  Some  of  the  balls  struck  the 
house." 

Not  having  received  letters  by  the  22d  of  July,  Donald 
grew  desperate,  and  dashed  off  the  following  brief  note: 
"  Still  another  steamer,  and  no  letter.  I  have  now  been  from 
home  nearly  three  months,  have  written  six  letters  besides 
those  to  the  papers,  and  received  one  meagre  half  sheet ! 
Mary,  it  is  rather  hard  for  me  to  give  up  what  few  friends  I 
supposed  I  had  in  America;  but  if  driven  to  it,  /  can  do  it. 
You  know  some  old  inclinations  will  favor  the  task.  I  shall 
henceforth  look  out  for  friends  on  this  side;  and  try  to  forget 
the  other  side,  so  much  as  to  be  careless  whether  you  write 
or  not.  ...  Of  course,  you  need  not  expect  to  hear  from 
me  for  a  long  time  to  come." 

At  last,  letters  began  to  arrive  irregularly.  On  the  26th 
of  September,  however,  we  find  him  complaining  again. 
"Your  letter  of  the  29th  August  came  to  hand  (owing  to  the 
unintelligible  character  of  the  superscription)  some  days 
after  its  time,  a  week  since.  It  was  marked  No.  6,  though  it 
is  but  the  fourth  I  have  received  from  you.  I  do  not  know 
why  your  letters  should  have  so  miscarried;  my  own  have 
gone  regularly,  and  I  have  received  regularly  from  other 
sources.  One  reason  is  very  likely  the  indistinctness  with 
which  they  have  been  directed.  It  is  true  they  can  read 

195 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

English  here;  but  then  English  must  be  written  with  some 
tolerable  plainness,  and  not  as  if  the  letter  were  going  only 
to  New  York.  All  your  letters  have  chased  over  Paris  before 
finding  me,  on  this  very  account.  .  .  .  You  will  already 
have  given  up  seeing  me  this  fall,  or  if  not  you  may  safely 
do  so  now.  I  shall  not  return  till  spring,  if  then.  My 
health  is  not  good;  my  spirits  have  not  been  of  the  best,  to 
which  lack  of  your  letters  has  not  a  little  contributed.  Lat 
terly,  however,  I  have  grown  more  careless.  My  time- 
partly  owing  to  ill-health,  and  partly  to  ill-humor  is  not  so 
well  employed  as  it  might  be — and  a  sort  of  indifference  to 
things  in  general  is  growing  upon  me,  which  the  neglect  of 
friends  at  home  has  had  a  very  nourishing  effect  upon.  .  .  . 
We  are  all  looking  just  now  for  another  revolution;  every  one 
is  disturbed  and  frightened.  As  for  myself,  I  have  relapsed 
as  I. said  into  a  state  of  perfect  indifference.  If  I  knew  the 
battle  were  to  rage  in  my  own  street  to-morrow  (and  I  am 
now  in  a  suspected  quarter  near  the  Rue  de  Seine),  I  would 
not  leave.  Perhaps  if  I  were  to  have  one  arm  shot  off — or 
head — I  should  receive  a  letter  of  condolence  to  cheer  me. 
Do  not  think  that  the  French  mails  are  disturbed — there  are 
no  complaints — they  carry  very  punctually  all  the  letters 
hence — I  think  they  bring  very  safely  all  that  arrive  from 
America.  I  am  sorry  you  feel  sadly  or  unpleasantly,  but 
you  will  be  better  able  to  appreciate  my  feelings  now  I  trust. 
A  letter  to  you  is  much  less  than  to  me,  both  from  your  hear 
ing  indirectly  every  week  nearly,  and  from  your  being  at 
home  while  I  am  an  exile.  This  letter  is  (I  confess  it) 
written  sourly,  in  worst  possible  humor;  but  if  it  had  been 
good  humored,  it  would  not  have  responded  honestly  to  my 
feelings;  as  it  is,  it  is  their  counterpart.  I  have  no  apology  to 
make  for  it,  and  nothing  to  add  to  it." 

The  following  morning  a  bundle  of  letters  and  papers 


PARIS    IN    REVOLUTION,    1848-1849 

from  America  reached  him.  "I  have  received  this  morning, 
Mary,  yours  of  a  date  previous  to  that  before  received,"  he 
replied  at  once.  "The  letters  and  the  Sun  have  put  me  in 
better  humor  than  yesterday.  You  speak  for  the  first  time  in 
your  letter  of  date  August  26th  of  my  return,  and  are  curious 
to  know  what  keeps  me  here.  I,  in  my  turn,  should  ask,  What 
should  call  me  home  ?  I  feel  myself  a  sort  of  unit  in  society — 
a  solitary,  floating  adventurer  to  whom  the  question  can 
hardly  be  put,  Why  do  you  so,  or  thus  ?  This  world  is  now 
full  of  excitement  and  confusion  and  war — why  not  stay  to 
see  the  issues  ?  .  .  .  This  letter  is  not  so  good  nor  so  long  as 
you  desire,  perhaps;  but  in  my  present  mood  it  would  be  a 
Herculean  task  to  write  any  more.  Everything  [seems] 
wrong  with  me." 

Upon  his  return  to  Paris  from  Bordeaux  he  found  further 
occasion  of  complaint.  Mrs.  Goddard  had  taken  care,  how 
ever,  to  inform  him  that  she  also  had  important  duties  which, 
at  times,  made  letter- writing  impracticable.  "Your  letter 
of  a  very  old  date  I  found  on  my  return  from  Bordeaux," 
he  informed  her  (November  8th,  1848).  "It  was  dated 
early  in  September,  and  marked  No.  7.  It  is,  I  think,  the 
fifth  I  have  received;  but  perhaps  others  are  on  their  way 
and  will  arrive  in  the  course  of  the  season.  It  is  but  poor 
comfort  to  receive  such  tardy  messengers;  and  news,  as  you 
rightly  judge,  is  grown  old  after  the  lapse  of  a  long  ship 
passage.  You  know,  of  course,  that  the  British  steamers  are 
still  running,  and  never  fail  to  transport  a  letter  properly 
directed  and  paid  for.  .  .  .  You  say  General  Williams  does 
not  fancy  my  continued  absence.  Does  he  mean  to  drive  me 
to  return  by  silence  ?  It  is  not  the  way;  you  know  me  well 
enough  to  have  told  him  that.  Indeed,  nothing  has  so  con 
firmed  my  resolution  to  spend  the  winter  abroad  as  the  evi- 

197 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

dences  of  indifference  which  met  me  at  home.  You  know,  I 
believe,  better  than  any  one,  Mary,  my  whimsical,  crochetty, 
sudden,  obstinate  character,  not  suited  to  any  one  but  myself, 
and  working  out  its  own  destinies  by  a  sort  of  irresistible 
fatality.  You  have  rightly  judged  that  the  lack  of  letters 
first  grieved  me,  then  provoked  me;  and  that  the  final  feel 
ing  was  a  complication  of  both.  But  in  writing  to  you  as  I 
did,  believe  me,  that  if  I  had  once  suspected  that  you  were 
in  attendance  upon  the  sick-bed  of  Louis,  I  would  have 
written  only  in  the  most  kindly  words.  You  know  too  well 
for  me  to  tell  you  of  it  that  I  regard  you  as  my  best  friend  in 
America,  and  if  it  were  not  for  you,  my  attractions  homeward 
would  be  diminished  nine-tenths.  I  am  not  going  to  fill  my 
letter  with  professions — you  know  I  don't  love  them  and 
never  did;  but  seriously,  putting  yourself  and  Louis  out  of  the 
question.  ...  I  could  go  to  sleep  to-night  and  wake  up 
to-morrow  forgetful  of  every  soul  that  America  contains. 
This,  you  say,  is  strong  and  unwarranted  and  all  that — may 
be  it  is  so — but  a  lonely  man  is  very  apt  to  adopt  such  whim- 
seys." 

It  appears  that  Mrs.  Goddard  took  him  to  task  rather 
severely  for  so  much  in  this  vein,  and  in  reply  he  wrote  her 
the  following  important  letter  (December  2oth,  1848): 

Your  last,  dear  Mary,  is  not  now  by  me;  but  I  think  I  can  re 
call  enough  of  its  scope  and  spirit  to  be  able  to  make  a  tolerable 
answer.  Don't  for  a  moment  think  that  anything  in  it  offended 
me.  I  have  not  yet  so  far  lost  all  my  qualities  of  a  Christian  man 
as  to  be  offended  with  what  was  so  well  meant;  nor  am  I  so  far 
ignorant  of  my  own  character  as  not  to  know  that  a  great  part  of 
what  you  say  is  true.  But  when  you  attribute  all  my  indisposition 
to  conciliate,  and  to  seek  friends,  and  to  keep  them — to  selfishness, 
unmingled — I  shall  demur.  When  you  intimate  that  it  may  have 

198 


PARIS    IN    REVOLUTION,    1848-1849 

been  the  result  of  early  habit  and  circumstances,  I  agree  most 
cordially,  and  regret  most  sincerely  that  such  habits  have  now  al 
most  become  a  second  nature.  They  have  tormented  me  more  than 
you  will  believe;  and  my  very  inaptness  to  conciliate  and  multiply 
and  guard  friendships  has  (from  bitter  consciousness  that  it  be 
longed  to  me)  brought  more  tears  to  my  eyes  in  my  quiet  and  silent 
moments  than  I  can  believe  would  come  freely  into  the  eyes  of  a 
purely  selfish  man.  Don't  think  I  want  to  disarm  you  of  your  very 
judicious  charges  by  exciting  your  pity,  though  Heaven  knows  "hat 
I  stand  enough  in  need  of  it,  and  am  grateful  for  the  smallest  boon. 
You  have  not  taken  enough  into  the  account  two  qualities  which 
harass  me,  and  always  will — an  extreme  sensitiveness,  and  over 
weening  suspicion.  You  may  say  that  sensitiveness  belongs  to  a 
selfish  man  and  is  a  part  of  him ;  if  so,  it  is  a  part  of  him  for  which  he 
is  not  justly  blameable,  and  for  which  he  is  no  more  accountable 
than  for  his  color.  But  I  am  ashamed  to  go  on  talking  in  this  way, 
on  so  short  a  sheet  and  so  near  Christmas  time.  You  say  you  know 
me;  then,  as  you  love  me,  think  as  well  of  me  as  you  can.  I  had 
rather  be  well  thought  of  by  half  a  dozen  than  to  be  flattered  for  an 
empty  and  unmeaning  courtesy,  by  half  the  world.  My  sensi 
bilities  and  affections  ever  since  I  was  eight  years  old  have  been 
too  rudely  jostled,  and  grown  up  among  too  many  thorns,  and 
suffered  in  too  many  waste  places,  to  accommodate  themselves 
ever  again  to  proper  world-shapes.  Hence,  I  have  a  sort  of  con 
viction  which  is  not  new  (much  as  I  have  talked  to  the  contrary) 
that  I  never  ought  to  marry;  that  so  I  shall  avoid  extending  the 
blight  of  my  presence,  and  narrow  my  ungainly  qualities  to  the 
smallest  and  least  hurtful  limits. 

This  is  queer  Christmas  talk  to  be  written  down  in  the  gayest 
capital  of  the  world,  and  at  the  witching  hour  of  twelve  at  night; 
but  so  it  is,  and  my  heart  chimes  in  with  it.  ...  You  want  to 
know  how  the  winter  passes  with  me  ?  Not  gaily,  very  far  from  it. 
I  attend  the  lectures  frequently,  and  take  a  walk  every  day  of  two 
or  three  miles.  Still  the  winter  is  not  gay,  nor  I.  I  seem  more 

199 


A 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

a  sort  of  homeless,  wandering,  friendless,  purposeless  vagabond 
than  ever  before  in  my  life.  It  matters  very  little,  I  say  to  myself, 
whether  I  get  back  into  that  American  world  next  summer,  or 
next  year,  or  the  next  ten  years.  I  am  but  a  shuttle-cock  beat 
about  by  the  strong  hand  of  Fortune,  which  strikes  me  here  as 
hard  and  as  often  as  it  strikes  me  there.  There  is  no  avoiding  the 
blows,  and  I  had  best  suffer  them  where  there  are  none  to  be  both 
ered  with  my  complaints. 

These  were,  of  course,  the  ebullitions  of  passing  moods, 
and  as  the  weeks  progressed  the  pull  toward  America  grew 
stronger.  "The  state  of  affairs  in  Europe,"  he  informed  Gen. 
Williams  (December  i8th,  1848),  "is  such  as  to  make  one 
ten-fold  content  with  America,  and  I  shall  return  more  than 
ever  satisfied  that  it  possesses  the  most  secure,  most  wise,  and 
most  liberal  government  in  the  world."  And  to  Mrs.  God- 
dard  on  the  8th  of  March  1849,  ne  wrote:  "I  must  at  least 
go  home  to  see  how  you  are  all  getting  along,  to  set  my  farm 
matters  straight,  and  to  draw  a  long  breath  of  true  republican 
air." 

All  the  while  he  was  considering  plans  for  permanent 
occupation.  Now  it  was  the  possibility  of  a  professorship 
of  literature  in  the  new  college  at  New  Orleans,  suggested  by 
his  friend  Perkins,  in  preparation  for  which  he  felt  that  a  year 
of  study  in  a  German  university  would  be  a  necessity.  Now 
the  establishment  of  a  new  magazine  in  New  York  was  con 
templated.  Again,  he  speculated  on  the  possibility  of  a 
political  appointment.  "Should  Mr.  Marsh,  of  Vermont, 
be  appointed  to  an  embassy  at  Berlin,  or  Madrid,"  he  wrote 
to  Gen.  Williams  (January  6th,  1849),  "I  should  try  to  se 
cure  the  secretaryship  of  Legation  for  a  year  or  two;  but  the 
appointments  are  so  uncertain  that  I  shall  act  as  if  it  were 
an  absolute  impossibility."  Always  thoughts  of  country  life 

200 


PARIS    IN    REVOLUTION,    1848-1849 

mingled  with  these  visions.  "Out  of  none  of  my  plans  does 
a  farm  ever  escape,"  runs  a  portion  of  a  sentence  in  a  letter 
to  Mrs.  Goddard  (November  8th,  1848),  and  the  thought  is 
repeated  so  often  in  the  correspondence  of  the  year  that  it 
forms  an  insistent  refrain.  "Scarce  anything,"  he  tells  her 
in  the  same  letter,  "would  so  lure  me  home  as  the  prospect 
of  farm  employ  not  too  far  removed  from  town.  If  Salem 
were  not  in  verity  the  fag-end  of  creation,  I  should  have  been 
ensconced  in  a  little  chamber  of  my  farmhouse  long  before 
now.  Even  in  a  literary  score,  I  find  I  can  accomplish  twice 
as  much  in  the  country  as  in  the  city."  Then,  when  indeci 
sion  had  reached  its  height,  and  there  seemed  no  other  de 
sirable  avenue  open,  he  turned  once  more  to  thoughts  of  law. 
"I  think  I  shall  come  home  in  the  spring,"  he  told  Mrs. 
Goddard  (January  25th,  1849),  "and  go  directly  back  to  law 
in  New  York  until  driven  off  by  cholera  or  the  heat." 

As  in  Liverpool  he  had  followed  the  course  of  the  presi 
dential  election  of  1844,  so  now  in  Paris  he  turned  even  more 
eagerly  to  the  struggle  of  1848  between  Zachary  Taylor, 
Lewis  Cass,  and  Martin  Van  Buren.  "I  am  glad  Clay  is 
dropped,"  he  remarked  to  Mrs.  Goddard  (June  26th,  1848). 
"T[aylor]  will  be  elected,  and  then  a  Whig  cabinet,  and  Whig 
appointments."  And  again  on  the  ist  of  July  he  wrote:  "I 
suppose,  of  course,  he  [Taylor]  will  be  elected;  we  think  he 
will,  this  side.  If  I  was  home,  I  would  vote  for  him"-  -"and 
perhaps,"  he  added  in  a  letter  of  November  I5th,  "turn  to 
making  speeches  in  his  favor."  Now  and  then  he  felt  an 
urge  to  public  life.  "What  if  I  should  come  home  a  full- 
blooded  politician,"  he  asked  Mary  in  this  same  letter  of 
November  I5th,  "go  out  to  Salem  and  set  myself  up  for  the 
Legislature  ?  Ask  them  if  they  will  vote  for  me.  The  truth 
is,  the  procession  of  the  times  here  makes  one  feel  that  his 

201 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

duty  lies  in  having  something  to  do  with  the  direction  of  the 
Government  influences."  All  in  all,  however,  he  was  be 
coming  surfeited  with  sight  of  political  turmoil  and  political 
disappointment.  As  the  time  for  the  presidential  election  in 
France  was  approaching,  he  was  writing  (December  8th)  to 
Mary  in  a  strain  that  gave  evidence  of  the  direction  in  which 
all  his  dreams  of  political  life  were  to  turn.  "We,  you  know, 
are  all  anxiously  looking  for  what  will  come  of  our  presiden 
tial  election — most  likely,  blood.  Another  great  turn  over- 
then  a  king  or  an  emperor,  and  then  I  will  go  home  and  turn 
to  farming,  satisfied  that  I  have  seen  enough  of  the  world's 
changes,  and  content  to  live  in  peace.  I  do  wish  from  my 
heart  I  was  snugly  fixed  on  a  little  farm  in  the  country  where 
the  noise  and  tumult  of  the  world  could  only  steal  in  by 
snatches.  Pray  is  that  dream  of  mine,  I  wonder,  ever  to  be 
realized?" 

The  spell  of  the  printed  page  was  still  holding  him,  and 
he  was  considering  the  best  method  of  turning  his  Paris 
experiences  to  profitable  account.  The  success  of  Fresh 
Gleanings^  good  as  it  was  for  a  first  book,  had  yet  not  been 
good  enough  to  stir  him  to  any  enthusiasm.  "They  [friends 
in  America]  have  been  prodigiously  surprised,  I  will  warrant, 
before  this  at  seeing  Ik  Marvel's  imprint  in  the  columns  of 
the  Courier  dated  in  the  middle  of  the  revolutionary  city," 
he  wrote  Mrs.  Goddard  (July  ist).  "  Maybe  I  can  make  my 
self  a  lion  at  coming  back,  on  the  strength  of  having  seen  the 
four  bloodiest  days  of  the  last  fifty  years — more  bloody  for 
Paris  even,  than  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew.  ...  I 
promised  Mr.  Bentley  in  London  to  write  some  sketches 
of  this  modern  Paris  for  his  Miscellany.  I  may  do  so.  He 
treated  me  very  kindly,  and  agreed  to  publish  in  handsome 
style  any  work  I  would  write  on  my  mountain  trip,  and  allow 

202 


PARIS    IN    REVOLUTION,    1848-1849 

me  one-half  the  profits.  I  have  not  yet  decided  what  to  do. 
Is  it  best  ?  I  have  not  enough  of  stimulus  to  do  anything. 
The  poor  success  of  the  first  has  altogether  dampened  my 
book-making  ardor.  No  one  but  you  and  a  few  friends  have 
spoken  of  it."  Nevertheless,  he  informed  her  on  the  8th  of 
March  1849,  tnat  ne  was  preparing  his  papers  "for  a  small 
book  on  the  events  of  the  summer,"  which  he  planned  to 
issue  in  the  course  of  the  year,  provided  he  could  find  a  pub 
lisher;  "a  sort  of  sketchy  history  of  the  summer  at  Paris," 
he  called  it. 

It  is  worth  our  while  to  peep  in  upon  him  at  his  lodgings 
in  7  Rue  de  Tournon,  and  to  see  how  amid  all  his  duties  and 
anxieties  his  mind,  as  in  1847,  was  ever  "drifting  like  a  sea 
bound  river — homeward."  The  letter  is  to  Mrs.  Goddard 
under  date  of  November  8th.  "I  am  sitting  by  a  little  fire 
made  of  two  sticks  and  a  pine  cone.  The  blaze  is  playing 
in  quite  home  fashion  over  the  white  curtains  of  my  bed,  and 
over  the  gilt  backs  of  my  little  stock  of  books;  a  couple  of 
plaster  heroes  are  smiling  on  me  from  the  mantel,  and  a  clay 
bust  of  Voltaire  is  grinning  on  the  bureau.  I  would  like  to 
transport  myself  this  moment  and  look  in  upon  you.  You 
have  (allowing  for  our  nearness  to  the  East)  just  finished 
your  tea,  and  are  drawing  up  about  the  grate  or  the  stove. 
Heigho  !  for  the  glowing  old  wood-fires  of  Elmgrove  !  I  shall 
write  an  eclogue  some  day  or  other,  and  make  the  pastorals 
pipe  it  in  that  old  valley  of  our  farms.  My  clock,  over  the 
mantel,  has  a  queer  conceit  in  its  construction:  two  little 
bronze  boys  are  trying  to  catch  a  butterfly;  the  butterfly  is 
somehow  connected  with  the  clock-work,  and  keeps  moving 
— always  just  so  far  away — always  just  so  near  being  caught. 
I  moralize  upon  it  in  all  sorts  of  fashion:  sometimes  it  is 
time  which  is  always  slipping  and  we  always  chasing;  some- 

203 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

times  it  is  pleasure  which  we  are  always  seeking  and  never 
seize;  sometimes  it  is  life  which  we  are  always  catching  and 
always  losing.  So  you  have  three  texts  for  as  many  ser 
mons,  and  I  nodding  on  my  paper." 

A  quiet  melancholy  was  stealing  upon  him;  a  feeling  of 
age  that  was,  in  truth,  a  necessary  ripening  of  his  mind  and 
spirit  for  the  work  that  lay  not  far  ahead  of  him,  as  much  as 
it  was  a  result  of  loneliness,  uncertain  health,  and  absence  of 
regular  occupation.  More  and  more  he  was  turning  to  Mary 
for  sympathy,  advice,  and  comfort.  "You  see,"  he  told  her 
(July  ist,  1848),  "I  consult  you  as  much  as  ever,  though  so 
far  removed.  I  believe  what  you  say,  Mary,  that  you  have 
spoilt  me  for  a  wife.  I  shall  never  find  one  who  will  be  so 
tender  to  my  faults  as  you  have  been,  and  so  willing  to 
praise  what  little  merit  I  may  have;  indeed,  I  have  now 
given  up  all  expectation  of  marrying,  and  shall  return  home 
next  time  in  full  determination  of  living  a  bachelor."  Again, 
half  jokingly,  he  wrote  (December  8th,  1848):  "As  for  me, 
Mary,  age  is  creeping  on  me,  I  imagine,  and  in  a  year  or  two 
I  shall  give  up  all  thought  of  ever  getting  married.  A  dog, 
a  horse,  and  a  cat  must  keep  me  company;  and  neither  one 
nor  the  other  of  them  can  be  annoyed  by  my  petulance,  or 
laugh  at  my  foibles."  Often  his  mood  was  one  of  "  dreaming 
of  the  days  that  are  no  more."  "You  don't  know  how  often 
my  thoughts  wander  delightedly  to  that  old  country  home 
at  Salem,"  he  told  Mary  (March  24th,  1 849).  "  I  tramp  over 
those  hills,  and  smoke  on  that  porch,  and  rub  up  my  gun, 
and  pat  Carlo  nearly  every  night  of  the  week.  I  don't  know 
as  I  shall  ever  get  it  out  of  my  head.  Surely  my  feelings 
will  never  attach  to  Norwich  in  the  same  way,  of  that  I  am 
ten-times  sure.  I  sometimes  dream  of  having  a  great  for 
tune,  and  going  back  there,  and  re-instating  everything  in 

204 


PARIS    IN    REVOLUTION,    1848-1849 

the  old  way,  and  so  dream  on  again  a  life  of  happy  idleness. 
If  your  tenant  is  disposed,  I  daresay  I  may  go  out  there  to 
pass  some  weeks  of  next  summer.  I  would  pitch  a  camp 
bedstead  in  the  corner  of  my  old  room,  hang  up  my  gun  in 
the  old  place,  tie  to  the  wall  a  couple  of  book-shelves  with 
Burke  and  Shakespeare  and  Izaak  Walton,  stick  over  the 
mantel  an  engraving,  and  then — what  ?  Ah,  it  would  be  but 
the  vainest  shadow — the  peskiest  skeleton — the  rottenest 
image  of  what  used  to  be  !  The  conviction  grows  on  me  more 
and  more,  and  harder  and  harder,  that  all  the  play-time  of 
my  life — all  the  enjoyable  piece  of  our  stingy  allotment  of 
time — is  gone;  and  that  thenceforward  it  must  be  one  strug 
gle  and  fight  and  frown — all  the  while  in  the  sun's  heat,  and 
no  shade  of  trees  to  run  to — all  the  while  thirsty,  and  no 
cool  spring  to  dip  a  lip  upon — -all  the  while  panting  like  a 
tired  dog,  and  no  kennel  to  crawl  into  and  sleep.  You  may 
say,  kindly  enough,  this  is  sad  folly  for  a  man  of  six  and 
twenty;  but  I  have  a  sort  of  feeling  of  having  grown  old 
before  my  time,  and  a  great  deal  of  the  weight  which  bur 
dens  a  man  of  fifty  is  lying  on  my  shoulders." 

He  sailed  from  Havre  in  the  packet-ship  Zurich  near  the 
middle  of  April  1849,  anc^  experienced  a  somewhat  long  and 
disturbed  voyage.  A  mulatto  cook,  having  refused  to  obey 
the  captain's  orders,  had  grown  mutinous  and  was  placed 
in  irons.  Escaping  from  his  place  of  confinement  during  the 
night,  he  again  attacked  and  almost  succeeded  in  killing  the 
captain;  but  was  finally  placed  in  custody  for  the  remainder 
of  the  journey.  The  event  cast  a  gloom  over  the  long  pas 
sage  of  somewhat  more  than  five  weeks.  Among  the  passen 
gers  whom  Donald  came  to  know  and  like  best  was  a  Madame 
Cecile  Pusey,  a  sister  of  the  eminent  Prof.  Arnold  Guyot, 
who  with  her  three  children  was  on  her  way  to  join  her  hus- 

205 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

band  on  land  which  he  had  acquired  near  St.  Louis,  Missouri. 
The  voyage  later  found  record1  in  Seven  Stories  y  for  the  "good 
ship  Nimrod"  is  only  another  name  for  the  Zurich. 

Before  the  middle  of  May,  Donald  was  resting  at  Mary 
Goddard's  home  in  Norwich.  Here  a  letter  came  to  him 
from  George  P.  Marsh.  "You  are  aware  no  doubt,"  wrote 
Mr.  Marsh  (June  9th,  1849),  "tnat  I  have  been  appointed 
to  the  mission  at  Constantinople.  I  wish  the  Legation  were 
so  arranged  that  I  could  offer  you  an  acceptable  place;  but, 
unfortunately,  no  provision  is  made  for  any  secretary  or  other 
attache  except  the  dragoman  who  acts  as  Secretary  of  Lega 
tion.  The  pay  of  the  Minister  is  so  small  that  he  cannot 
afford  to  allow  a  compensation  to  an  attache,  and  indeed, 
I  imagine  that  he  can  have  little  occasion  for  any  official 
assistant  except  the  dragoman.  It  has,  however,  occurred 
to  me  that  you  might  desire  to  visit  the  Levant,  and  in  that 
case,  I  suppose  it  might  be  useful  to  you  to  be  connected  with 
the  American  Legation,  and  I  write  to  say  that  if  you  incline 
to  adventure  a  pilgrimage  among  the  Paynim,  I  shall  be 
happy  to  give  you  any  privileges  I  have  power  to  confer. 
We  hope  to  sail  in  July,  and  if  the  state  of  Germany  will 
permit,  to  pass  through  that  country  and  by  way  of  Vienna 
to  Trieste,  and  so  by  steam  to  Constantinople.  Could  you 
not  turn  such  a  trip  to  account  ?"  It  would  seem  that  only 
a  lack  of  funds  on  the  part  of  the  American  minister  pre 
vented  Donald's  joining  Mr.  Marsh  on  this  beginning  of  his 
long  and  distinguished  service  abroad. 

Within  a  few  weeks  Donald  went  on  to  New  York,  estab 
lished  himself  in  a  little  second-floor  room  of  Mrs.  Barnes's 
home,  1 1  Fifth  Avenue,  and  settled  down  once  more,  "study 
ing  law  after  a  fashion"  with  Mr.  Sargent,  preparing  the 

1  Seven  Stories,  22-39. 
206 


PARIS    IN   REVOLUTION,    1848-1849 

manuscript  of  The  Battle  Summer,  and  revolving  over  and 
over  the  vexed  question  of  what  to  do.  The  Battle  Summer 
was  published  early  in  1850  by  Baker  &  Scribner.  The  vol 
ume,  designated  as  "The  Reign  of  Blouse/'  treats  of  the 
events  immediately  preceding  the  insurrections  of  February 
2jd  and  24th,  1848,  and  carries  the  narrative  down  to  June, 
the  first  month  of  DonakTs  own  observation.  It  was  his 
intention  to  continue  with  a  second  volume,  "The  Reign  of 
Bourgeois,"  based  entirely  upon  his  own  observations;  but 
the  reception  accorded  to  the  first  was  not  sufficiently  hearty 
to  spur  him  on  to  the  preparation  of  the  second.  The  style 
of  The  Battle  Summer  did  not  meet  with  public  approval. 
"It  is  not  good,  inasmuch  as  it  is  not  Mr.  Mitchell's  own," 
wrote  a  reviewer  in  Putnam's  Monthly  Magazine.  "It  is  a 
very  obvious  attempt  at  the  Carlylean  style  of  writing,  and 
we  confess  we  don't  like  our  author  in  borrowed  clothes.  He 
wears  his  own  so  gracefully  that  we  would  never  wish  him  to 
change  them."  1  Another  reviewer2  spoke  of  it  as  "a  bald 
imitation  of  Carlyle's  nodosities,  too  execrable  to  find  mercy 
from  reader  or  critic."  Mr.  Mitchell,  always  extremely  sen 
sitive  to  public  opinion,  and  always  encouraged  or  depressed 
by  the  favorable  or  unfavorable  sales  of  his  books,  dropped 
the  subject,  and  never  again  attempted  anything  in  the  same 
style — a  style  entirely  foreign,  it  may  be  said,  to  the  bent  of 
his  genius. 

He  did  not,  however,  give  over  writing.  For  the  time 
being  it  seemed  the  only  thing  which  could  occupy  him  seri 
ously.  It  at  least  afforded  him  pleasure  and  a  source  of 
revenue. 

1  The  January  1853  number,  p.  77.  2  In  the  New  York  Tribune. 


207 


VIII 
SATIRIST  AND  DREAMER 

Folly  has  been  my  target,  wherever  it  appeared;  and  I  have 
endeavored  by  the  wide  range  of  my  observations,  to  do  away  with 
the  suspicion  that  I  ranked  vice  by  social  grades,  or  heaped  upon 
wealth  or  fashion  any  gratuitous  reproach. — The  Lorgnette ',  2.294. 

I  sometimes  think  that  I  must  be  a  very  honest  fellow  for  writ 
ing  down  those  fancies  which  every  one  else  seems  afraid  to  whisper. 
— Dream  Life,  17. 

From  boyhood  constant  employment  was  a  requisite  of 
Donald's  nature.  Idleness  he  could  not  endure;  and  yet  it 
seemed  to  him  just  now  that  he  was  doomed  to  a  life  of 
profitless  inactivity.  His  friends,  too,  were  becoming  con 
cerned  about  his  apparent  aimlessness  and  indecision;  they 
thought  he  should  be  "doing  something."  They  did  not 
take  into  account  sufficiently  the  fact  that  in  his  case  appear 
ances  were  deceptive;  for  even  when  he  seemed  least  occupied 
he  was  drifting  farthest  on  the  wings  of  his  fancy.  It  was 
impossible  that  his  friends  should  know  the  children  of  his 
brain  that  were  growing  toward  their  birth. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  this  was  for  him  a  pe 
culiarly  trying  period.  It  was  no  easy  matter  for  one  in  his 
state  of  mind  to  pass  from  the  exciting  scenes  of  Paris  rev 
olution  to  the  dull  routine  of  a  New  York  law  office.  For 
one  of  his  temperament,  I  fancy  that  the  law,  even  under 
the  most  favorable  conditions,  would  soon  have  grown  dis 
tasteful.  It  had  now  become  intolerable.  Employment, 

208 


SATIRIST   AND    DREAMER 

however,  he  must  find,  and  that  of  a  nature  to  answer  as 
substitute  for  the  stimulus  of  travel  and  adventure. 

The  success  of  his  former  contributions  to  the  Courier  and 
Enquirer — his  "Capitol  Sketches"  and  "Marvel  Letters" — 
no  doubt  suggested  the  thought  of  undertaking  something 
in  the  same  satirical  vein  on  a  plan  somewhat  more  elaborate. 
It  must  have  been  very  soon  after  the  publication  of  The 
Battle  Summer  that  he  conceived  the  notion  of  publishing  a 
weekly  pamphlet,  or  journal,  something  on  the  order  of  the 
classic  Spectator  and  of  Salmagundi^  in  which  he  could  turn  to 
account  his  leisurely,  though  critical,  study  of  American  life, 
particularly  as  it  revealed  itself  in  New  York  City.  It  was 
inevitable  that  two  extended  periods  of  residence  in  Europe 
should  enable  him  to  see  many  of  the  faults  and  virtues  of  his 
own  country  in  a  way  that  he  could  not  otherwise  have  done; 
and  it  occurred  to  him  that  the  work  he  had  in  mind  would  be 
not  only  a  source  of  enjoyment  but  a  means  of  improving 
public  manners  and  morals  by  subjecting  them  to  merited, 
though  good-natured,  criticism.  He  decided  to  adopt  a 
new  pen-name,  and  to  preserve  as  far  as  possible  a  strict 
anonymity.  All  of  the  arrangements  he  surrounded  with 
enough  of  secrecy  to  give  zest  to  every  passing  week,  and  to 
satisfy  his  appetite  for  excitement.  The  project  combined, 
in  a  way  peculiarly  satisfying  to  him,  employment,  public 
service,  and  amusement. 

His  plans  were  well  laid.  It  happened  that  just  then  his 
old  Norwich  schoolmate  and  fast  friend,  William  Henry 
Huntington,  was  at  work  in  New  York  upon  the  compilation 
of  a  Latin  lexicon.  Huntington  made  the  contracts  with 
the  printers  and  the  booksellers,  and  arranged  for  the  weekly 
delivery  of  the  pamphlets  to  the  shops  where  they  were  to  be 
sold.  It  is  likely  that  in  the  beginning  only  Huntington  and 

209 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

Charles  Scribner,  of  Baker  &  Scribner,  who  printed  the  first 
twelve  numbers,  were  in  the  secret. 

After  two  or  three  weeks  of  preliminary  arrangement,  the 
fun  began.  On  a  morning  of  late  January  1 850,  the  windows 
of  the  Broadway  book-shops,  particularly  those  of  the  shop 
belonging  to  Henry  Kernot,  a  lively  little  Englishman,  be 
came  the  centres  of  attraction.  Copies  of  a  small,  yellow- 
covered  pamphlet,  The  Lorgnette,  or  Studies  of  the  Town  by  an 
Opera  Goer,  were  bidding  good-morrow  to  the  passing  New 
Yorkers.  The  copies  bore  date  of  January  2oth.  The  pic 
ture  of  a  young  dandy  peering  intently  through  a  huge  lor 
gnette,  and  giving  at  first  glance  the  impression  of  a  large, 
staring  owl,  looked  out  from  the  cover  upon  all  the  passers-by. 
The  bait  was  attractive.  The  curious  bought,  read,  ques 
tioned,  wondered.  Who  could  this  reputed  author,  this  John 
Timon,  be,  who  promised  "a  work  for  the  express  entertain 
ment  of  all  spinsters  who  wish  husbands;  all  belles  who  ad 
mire  their  own  charms;  all  beaux  who  are  captivated  with 
their  own  portraits;  all  old  ladies  who  wish  to  be  young;  all 
authors  studious  of  their  own  works;  all  fashionists  in  love 
with  their  own  position;  all  Misses  eager  to  be  seen;  all  rich 
men  who  are  lovers  of  their  money;  all  bachelors  looking  for  a 
fortune;  all  poets  infatuated  with  their  powers;  all  critics 
confident  of  their  taste;  and  all  sensible  men  who  are  con 
tent  to  be  honest"?  No  one  could  give  a  satisfactory  an 
swer;  the  whole  matter  was  surrounded  by  profound  mystery. 
Soon  the  newspapers  and  magazines  were  hot  on  the  trail. 
Within  a  short  time  The  Lorgnette  was  the  talk  of  the  town, 
and  the  matter  of  John  Timon's  identity  the  question  of  the 
hour. 

Henry  Kernot's  shop,  in  virtue  of  the  pamphlets'  bearing 
his  name  as  publisher,  became  the  storm-centre.  Visitors 

210 


SATIRIST    AND    DREAMER 

thronged  his  store.  They  plied  him  with  questions,  they 
praised,  they  condemned,  they  laughed,  they  sneered;  they 
could  not  ignore.  But  the  little  bookseller  could  not  have 
informed  them  if  he  would.  "Even  Mr.  Kernot  himself/* 
wrote  Mr.  Mitchell  in  1883,  "was  not  cognizant  of  their 
true  authorship;  and  knew  little  save  that  the  big  bundle  of 
yellow-covered  pamphlets  was  delivered  in  a  mysterious  way 
upon  his  counter  every  Thursday  morning.  Indeed,  I  am 
disposed  to  believe  that  Mr.  Kernot's  important  air,  and 
affable  smiles,  and  tightly  closed  lips,  fed  the  mystification 
not  a  little.  The  good  man  even  volunteered  the  keeping  of 
a  weekly  diary,  in  which  he  entered  the  opinions  pro  and  con 
of  his  fashionable  clients — a  very  full  diary  and  humorsome 
(Mr.  Kernot  not  lacking  in  that  quality);  and  this  budget, 
which  always  found  its  way  to  me  through  the  mediation  of 
one  or  two  friends  who  were  alone  in  the  secret,  is  still  in  one 
of  my  pigeonholes,  scored  with  underlinings,  and  radiant 
with  notable  New  York  names  of  thirty  years  since."  1 

Never  did  boys  enjoy  a  secret  game  better  than  Donald 
and  his  confidants  enjoyed  this  work  of  satire  and  mystifica 
tion.  As  the  weeks  went  by,  others  were  taken  into  confi 
dence.  Henry  J.  Raymond,  of  the  Courier  and  Enquirer •,  and 
Samuel  Bowles,  of  the  Springfield  Republican,  "were  easily 
able  to  spoil  too  warm  a  trail  in  the  search  for  the  true  John 
Timon."  In  New  York,  Dr.  Fordyce  Barker  and  Samuel  J. 
Tilden,  and  in  Boston,  William  H.  Bond,  kept  eyes  and  ears 
open  for  material  which  would  lend  itself  to  Lorgnette  pur 
poses,  and  passed  the  results  of  their  observation  on  to  Ti 
mon.  For  three  months  the  endeavor  to  identify  the  author 
waxed  more  and  more  earnestly.  Donald,  now  from  his 
"garret"  on  Fifth  Avenue  where  to-day  stands  the  Brevoort 

1  See  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor,  xvii. 
211 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

House,  now  from  Norwich,  and  again  from  East  Wareham, 
Massachusetts,  watched  the  merry  game  go  on.  There  is  no 
need  of  enlarging  upon  the  delight  with  which  he  and  his 
confederates  read  such  communications  from  Mr.  Kernot  as 
the  following: 

New  York,  i9th  April  1850. 
To  the  Editor  of  The  Lorgnette. 
Dear  Sir, 

In  literature,  as  in  society,  the  fashion  and  habits  of  the  passing 
day  have  a  contagious  influence,  and  therefore,  in  conformity 
with  the  prevailing  feudalism  of  modern  book-making,  and  the  sly 
artifice  of  novel  manufacturers,  I  forward  you,  under  the  customary 
assurance,  "to  be  continued"  such  gleanings  as  I  have  been  able 
to  gather  since  the  last  communication  which  I  had  the  pleasure 
to  address  you. 

Diary. 

Tuesday,  i6th  April. — Mrs.  Clarkson  (538  B'way)  sent  her  son 
for  one  or  two  numbers  of  Willis's  New  Work  publishing  weekly; 
guessed  what  he  meant,  but  for  the  joke  of  it  handed  him  the  last 
issue  of  the  Home  Journal,  when  he  immediately  remarked,  "No ! 
No!  YOU  publish  it — The  Lorgnette!  It's  very  odd  you  are  igno 
rant  of  what  all  the  town  knows.  It's  not  like  you,  Sir,  you  are 
generally  so  well  informed;  but  this  time  you  are  certainly  behind 
the  age."  N.  B.  A  bright  and  smart  lad  to  administer  so  severe 
and  startling  a  reproof. 

W.  C.  Maitland  (Bleecker  St.)  "What  is  your  John  Timon 
driving  at?  I'll  be  d if  I  can  understand  him.  Does  he  pre 
tend  to  be  humorous,  witty,  or  what?"  N.  B.  Like  young  stu 
dents  in  the  Elements  of  Euclid — the  Lorgnette  proves  a  sort  of 
Pons  Asinorum — the  j£.  E.  D.  of  perplexing  conjecture. 

Two  Young  Bloods  entered  in  a  rollicksome  manner  and  asked 
for  the  last  No.  of  the  L.,  one  of  them  in  a  jovial  voice  remark 
ing,  "This  work  is  going  to  make  a  rage.  Sir." 

212 


SATIRIST    AND    DREAMER 

Ik  Marvel  favored  me  with  a  visit,  during  which  he  told  me 
"that  he  thought  the  L.  would  sell  better  if  made  moresatirica/" — 
upon  the  principle,  I  suppose,  of  pampering  to  the  vitiated  curiosity 
of  the  many  by  whom  scandal  will  always  be  greedily  purchased. 

A  Gentleman  (stranger)  called  to  inquire  if  we  had  all  the  num 
bers  of  the  Lorgnette.  On  assuring  him  that  I  had  really  only  one 
set  left,  and  trying  hard  to  obtain  it  for  8/-,  then  9/-,  then 
io/-,  with  a  good  deal  of  pleasant  joking  and  chaffing,  eventually 
appeared  glad  to  secure  it.  He  was  a  very  pleasant,  good  natured 
gent.,  and  said  he  knew  John  Timon,  and  interrogated  me  by  asking 
whether  I  had  lately  seen  his  "honor"  in  the  retirement  of  his 
garret — his  "private  room  near  the  clouds."  To  which  I  replied, 
as  to  any  knowledge  of  John  Timon's  person  and  whereabouts,  I 
was  completely  in  "the  clouds," — and  altogether  ignorant  whether 
he  was  paying  an  erratic  visit  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  moon,  or 
like  the  mystic  Koran  of  Mahomet,  floating  in  mid-air,  or  en 
sconced  in  the  impenetrable  mystery  of  the  intermediate  state — 
supposititious,  pregnant  with  the  most  awful  debate.  He  further 
added  and  expressed  himself  delighted  with  the  work,  saying  "it 
was  full  of  good  things  and  wholesome  truths."  I  offered  to  send 
the  work  to  his  residence,  with  the  view  of  learning  his  name, 
which  he  declined  with  a  knowing  look,  as  much  as  to  say,  in  slang 
phrase,  "No  go." 

Wednesday,  iyth. — Mrs.  Kirkland  called,  and  approaching  me 
with  quick  step,  said  to  me  aside,  and  in  secrecy,  "that  she  had 
discovered  John  Timon  in  a  glaring  mistake;  and  meant  to  write 
him  on  the  misquotation  of  the  passage  referred  to  in  the  Psalms." 
(Vide  Psalm  73  :  20  in  connection  with  the  passage  in  page  212, 
No.  9.) 

A  Gentleman  who  purchased  a  copy  of  the  last  No.  of  the  L.  was 
astonished  at  my  alleged  ignorance  of  the  author,  and  assured  me 
it  was  undoubtedly  by  Mr.  Osborne.1  It  does  appear  to  me  a  re 
proach  on  American  literature,  in  which  I  am  willing  to  bear  my 

1  Mr.  Mitchell  has  added  the  annotation,  "Laughton  Osborn,  b.  1809;  d.  1878." 

213 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

share  of  the  censure  for  not  suggesting  his  name  before,  that 
amidst  the  multitudinous  probabilities  and  improbabilities  of  the 
authorship  of  the  £.,  the  name  of  this  gentleman  has  not  ere  this 
started  up  with  brilliant  prominency — a  gentleman  of  elegant 
manners,  erudite  learning,  fine  classical  attainments,  profound 
thought,  and  extensive  travel — combining  in  himself  all  the  req 
uisites  of  a  polished  scholar,  and  which  no  genuine  philomath 
with  suitable  and  appreciative  abilities  would  venture  to  dispute, 
who  has  ever  examined  the  Vision  of  Rubeta.  But 

"Full  many  a  gem  of  purest  ray  serene, 

The  dark  unfathom'd  caves  of  ocean  bear; 
Full  many  a  flower  is  born  to  blush  unseen, 
And  waste  its  sweetness  on  the  desert  air." 

James  W.  Eeekman  has  just  returned  from  Albany  and  told  me 
"that  the  L.  is  much  talked  of  there."  Amen!  to  the  favorable 
opinion  of  the  capital  of  the  Empire  State. 

Dr.  C.  Gilman.  "Well,  Mr.  K.,  I  am  happy  to  inform  you  that 
your  little  publication,  the  L.,  is  very  highly  praised  everywhere, 
very  highly,  indeed  ! " 

Thursday,  Apl.  18. — A  Gentleman  called  to  inquire  for  the  No.  of 
the  Literary  World  containing  the  critique  on  the  £.,  remarking, 
"Oh !  it  is  pretty  generally  known  that  the  article  was  written  by 
Mr.  Bristed." 

It  was  my  intention  to  have  added  a  few  more  remarks,  but 
this  I  must  defer  (suffering  so  severely  from  a  distracting  tooth 
ache)  until  to-morrow,  when  I  will  endeavor  to  furnish  you  with  a 
list  of  the  alleged  authors  of  the  Lorgnette  as  far  as  I  remember 
them,  and  before  I  began  the  Diary — with  other  "wise  saws  and 
modern  instances" — meanwhile  I  bid  you  a  friendly  and  temporary 

farewell,  and  remain  v         ,     ,,    c      , 

Your  obed  t  Serv  t, 

Publisher  of  the  Lorgnette. 

I3P3  Please  return  me  at  your  earliest  convenience  my  proofs 
of  the  Lorgnette -,  that  Mr.  Scribner  showed  you;  with  all  the 

214 


SATIRIST    AND    DREAMER 

'notices'  you  can  spare  the  loan  of  (to  bi  carefully  returned  to  you) , 
accompanied  by  such  remarks — quips  and  quirks — "whims  and 
oddities,"  &c.,  as  you  may  desire.  I  want  to  do  your  good  little 
work  justice.  '  *  Fiat  justitia . ' ' 

Number  12  of  the  first  series  was  dated  April  24th.  A 
portion  of  this  number  Timon  devoted  to  a  disquisition  on 
the  "Authors  and  Authorlings"  who  were  then  on  the  public 
tongue,  and  of  course  seized  the  opportunity  to  consider  in 
turn  and  by  name  several  of  those  most  prominently  men 
tioned  in  connection  with  the  authorship  of  The  Lorgnette. 
He  said  his  say  about  Joel  T.  Headley,  N.  P.  Willis,  Richard 
Grant  White,  Cornelius  Matthews,  and  J.  K.  Paulding,  to 
mention  only  a  few;  and  at  the  same  time  took  occasion  to 
divert  attention  from  himself.  "Mr.  Ik.  Marvell  (Mitchell)  v 
has  also  come  in  for  a  share  of  the  suspicion;  and  although, 
perhaps,  I  ought  to  feel  flattered  by  the  association  of  my 
work  with  the  name  of  either  author  or  authorling,  yet  it  does 
really  seem  that  my  unpretending  and  straightforward  sen 
tences  show  very  little  to  evidence  the  same  paternity  with 
the  contortions  and  abruptnesses  of  The  Battle  Summer.  To 
say  the  least  of  it,  my  errors  against  grammar  have  not  been 
wilful;  and  my  arrangement  of  style  has  not  looked  toward 
the  quackery  of  dramatic  effect.  Yet  withal  the  compliment 
is  acknowledged,  since  the  same  gentleman  has  written  a 
most  creditable  book  of  travels,  which  of  an  idle  hour  will 
repay  a  second  reading.  Mr.  Marvell  is  certainly  a  promising 
young  man,  and  with  thus  much  of  compliment  to  sustain 
him  for  the  loss,  I  relieve  him  entirely  of  the  new  and  un 
necessarily  imposed  burden  of  authorship."  *  The  number 
closed  with  a  tentative  farewell  from  Timon.  "My  pub- 

1  See  The  Lorgnette,   1.286.     It  is  likely  that  Mr.  Mitchell  spelled  the  name 
"Marvell"  as  a  means  of  spoiling  the  scent  still  more. 

2I5 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

lisher  informs  me  as  the  sheets  are  passing  through  the  press 
that  the  twelve  numbers  now  issued  will  make  a  fair-sized 
volume;  you  may  possibly,  therefore/'  he  wrote,  "miss  the 
ensuing  week  your  accustomed  visitant;  and  whether  it  will 
make  its  appearance  the  coming  month  will  depend  very 
much  on  my  own  whim,  and  the  humor  of  the  town.  But 
do  not  be  misled  ...  it  has  been  thrown  out  by  some 
that  the  Lorgnette  was  nothing  more  than  an  eccentric 
charity;  and  one  very  grave  and  important  publisher  assured 
me  that  it  was  wholly  paid  for  by  its  author,  and  then  placed, 
printed  and  bound,  in  the  hands  of  the  publisher.  The  dear 
public  will  allow  me  to  correct  this  error,  and  to  assure  them 
that  though  they  may  laugh  at  my  labor,  they  are  paying  for 
the  laugh.  Nor  is  this  said  in  vanity,  but  in  justification; 
for  nothing  seems  to  me  a  more  absurd  charity  than  for  a  man 
to  publish  his  thoughts  when  the  public  do  not  care  enough 
for  his  thought  to  pay  for  the  printing.  Such  a  man  (and 
on  this  point  my  opinion  will  be  obnoxious  to  many  town- 
authors)  had  much  better  every  way  drop  his  surplus  pence 
into  the  parish  poor  box;  in  that  case,  he  may  console  himself 
with  knowing  that  no  one  is  pestered  with  his  thought,  and 
that  some  poor  souls  may  possibly  be  stuffing  their  bellies 
with  his  money.  John  Timon  neither  owes  any  man,  nor  is 
he  any  man's  creditor.  He  leaves  off,  if  he  leaves  off,  as 
fairly  as  he  started;  and  he  will  be  at  liberty  to  begin  when 
ever  his  whim  directs."  l 

Toward  the  end  of  April  the  scent  had  begun  to  grow 
uncomfortably  warm.  "Some  quick  means  must  be  hit 
upon  to  bluff  suspicion  hereabouts,"  wrote  Donald  to  Hunt- 
ington,  from  Norwich  (May  ist).  "They  are  strongly  on 
the  track,  and  the  scent  lies  well.  I  have  been  asked  a 

1  The  Lorgnette,  1.292-293.     See  also  p.  174  of  this  biography. 
216 


SATIRIST    AND    DREAMER 

half-dozen  times,  and  have  in  some  instances  made  a  poor 
figure  of  it.  You  came  in  for  a  little  of  it.  Now  under  that 
notion  couldn't  something  be  done  in  the  courier?  For  in 
stance,  haven't  you  a  friend  who  could  notice  the  Lorgnette 
in  a  paragraph  for  Sykes,  and  say  '  the  impression  that  this 
is  written  by  a  gentleman  of  this  city — at  least  [by]  a  native 
of  Norwich,  is  wholly  erroneous,  and  we  have  the  amplest 
authority  for  denying  it.  Indeed,  the  severe  way  in  which 
Mr.  Marvel  is  treated  would  forbid  the  belief?'  The  last 
part  perhaps  is  questionable;  the  first  by  means  of  the  equi 
voque  will  work  well,  and  if  published,  I  will  get  Raymond  to 
copy  into  Courier  and  Enquirer" 

Huntington,  who  was  just  then  negotiating  for  a  trans 
ference  of  Lorgnette  publication  into  other  hands,  replied 
(May  jd):  "In  reference  to  the  Norwich  suspicions:  Now, 
there  is  a  wide  way  between  suspicion  and  proof.  Let  the 
heathen  rage.  Live  down  the  charge,  or  face  the  music  and 
lie  it  down,  as  the  casuists  in  such  cases  allow.  A  disclaimer 
in  the  Courier  (which  I  see  you  very  properly  write  with  a 
small  c)  would,  to  my  seeming,  be  very  ill  ad  vised,  and  [would] 
strengthen  suspicion  in  the  right  direction.  Besides  that, 
so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  the  charge  is  not  direct  nor  general 
enough  to  call  for  it.  Were  I  to  take  the  pains  to  say  I  was 
not  so  and  so,  the  not  particularly  agreeable  comment  would 
be,  'Who  the  devil  said  you  were?'  The  ambiguity  of  the 
disclaimer  would,  I  think,  be  appreciated  and  resolved  very 
readily.  No,  no,  such  a  movement  would  betray  too  much 
anxiety.  The  indifference  of  innocence  is  your  card.  It 
surely  will  be  no  difficult  matter  by  means  of  the  newspapers 
and  correspondents  to  treat  the  topics  of  the  city  in  a  way 
to  show  that  the  writer  is  an  eye  and  ear  witness  of  the  doings 
of  yesterday;  e.  g.y  a  line  from  an  anniversary  address  (quoted 

217 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

direct,  with  a  verbal  alteration,  from  the  Tribune  report),  a 
turn,  a  bonnet,  a  blunder  of  an  actor  or  auditor  at  last  night's 
opera,  which  none  but  an  auditor  could  have  seen  or  heard, 
the  Perrine  pavemeht,  etc.,  etc.,  these  will  be  your  defence 
by  alibi.  Save  the  country  and  provincial-city  topics  till 
your  return  to  the  metropolis;  cram  on  Greece,  St.  Peters 
burg,  Timbuctoo,  or  some  other  where  you  never  were  in 
to  prove  that  John  Timon  is  familiar  with  the  very  paving 
stones  of  those  parts.  Meantime,  hurry  out  the  reveries. 
Send  Dana  a  letter  from  Agawam.  Stop  at  the  Irving  or 
Astor  and  get  yourself  announced  on  your  return.  Don't 
come  back  these  three  weeks.  I  will  try  to  make  the  Doctor 
[Fordyce  Barker]  send  you  some  hints  from  the  opera  to 
morrow  night — it's  last  night,  by  the  way — Huntington's 
gallery  closes,  too,  this  week — and  the  anniversaries  begin. 
The  daily  papers  will  keep  you  informed  of  these  things,  of 
the  theatre,  etc.  Maybe  as  trifles  to  prove  yourself  here, 
these  may  be  of  service:  Stuart  &  Co.  have  just  begun  tearing 
away  at  corner  of  Broadway  and  Chamber  preparatory  to 
enlargement;  parsons  arriving  to  get  pudding  for  the  faithful 
and  attend  anniversaries;  gay  white  and  red  curtains  (not  to 
be  praised)  at  the  Irving  House  dining  room;  all  manner 
of  drab  felt  hats  coming  out  with  the  spring;  theatre  full  of 
strangers  .  .  .  etc.  Any  distinguished  scamp,  gentleman, 
or  officer  (see  morning  papers  at  Safford  &  Parker's)  at  the 
Irving  or  Astor  can  be  met  the  day  of  his  arrival  in  Broad 
way.  If  I  go  to  Brougham's  Benefit,  you  shall  hear  of  it. 
That  circus  matter  is  not  markedly  wonderful.  Jack  Shep 
herd  et  id  omne  playing  at  the  Bowery  in  a  parallel  course 
with  W.  Shakespeare.  .  .  ." 

"I  accept  fully  your  return  suggestions  about  the  Courier 
(with  the  small  capital),  and  shall  fight  the  matter  out  in 

218 


SATIRIST    AND    DREAMER 

dignified  quiet,"  Donald  humbly  agreed  (May  6th).  "You 
know  you  are  authorized  to  say  I  have  denied  it — to  Dana, 
and  to  as  many  more  as  you  choose." 

Up  to  the  completion  of  the  twelfth  number  Donald  had 
himself  borne  all  the  expenses  of  publication.  He  was  now 
becoming  convinced  that  if  he  could  enter  into  a  satisfactory 
arrangement  with  a  publishing  house  whereby  they  would 
assume  all  the  expenses  of  publication  on  a  royalty  basis,  it 
would  be  more  advantageous  all  round.  He  felt  the  work 
would  be  pushed  to  better  advantage  by  a  company  entirely 
responsible  for  its  success.  Latterly,  in  spite  of  all  the  ardor 
of  Master  Kernot,  as  he  and  his  confidants  called  the  little 
Englishman,  Donald  had  a  growing  conviction  that  his  maga 
zine  was  not  handled  with  sufficient  enterprise.  Huntington 
thereupon  approached  Stringer  &  Townsend  and  began  nego 
tiations  for  a  new  basis  of  publication.  "I  am  this  instant," 
he  informed  Donald  (April  joth),  "home  from  an  interview 
with  Mr.  Stringer,  with  whom  I  have  bargained.  .  .  .  On 
being  told  that  Ik  Marvel,  D.  G.  Mitchell,  and  J.  Timon 
were  but  an  Unitarian  individual,  expresses  much  surprise, 
with  great  familiarity  in  regard  to  the  works  of  the  two 
gentlemen  first  mentioned — evidently  well  tickled  with  his 
bargain  at  this  discovery — had  seen  you  often,  but  thought 
somehow  that  Ik  Marvel  was  a  'large  man/  ...  So  go 
right  on  and  'treat  the  town'  soon  with  a  new  dish.  Cry 
aloud  and  spare  not.  If  foolish  individuals  standing  in  the 
front  rank  of  folly  choose  to  think  themselves  aimed  at,  it 
is  their  fault;  don't  regard  their  vanity,  but  blaze  away  at 
the  whole  column,  and  no  blank  cartridges.  .  .  .  Stringer 
appreciates  the  importance  of  mumness  to  the  full;  e.  g.,  he 
does  not  mean  to  let  Townsend  know  who  you  are  ( !) "  On 
the  jd  of  May  Huntington  closed  the  contract.  "S.  &  T.  are 

219 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

bricks,  trumps,  especially  S.,  and  mean  to  push  the  L.  to 
the  utmost  limit;  a  new  placard  every  week,  etc.,"  he  wrote 
exultingly  at  the  close  of  negotiations.  "And  now  you  are 
fixed,"  he  concluded,  "per  contract,  with  employment  per 
fectly  honest,  quite  honorable,  and  profitable  enough  to  pay 
for  necessaries  and  leave  a  trifle  over  for  drinks;  duke  et 
decorum ,  as  Rev.  Mr.  Woodbury  would  say;  so  come  on, 
1  hold  not  thine  hand  aback/  " 

After  five  more  months  of  the  same  rare  fun,  Donald 
brought  The  Lorgnette  to  a  close  with  the  twelfth  number  of 
the  second  series,  dated  October  9th,  1850.  The  venture  had 
been  more  profitable  than  he  had  anticipated.  According  to 
an  account  rendered  by  Baker  &  Scribner  on  the  loth  of  June 
1850,  almost  5,000  copies  of  the  first  twelve  numbers  had 
been  sold.  Stringer  &  Townsend  reported  (April  28th,  1851) 
a  sale  of  almost  9,000  copies  of  the  second  twelve  numbers, 
and  3,000  copies  of  the  first  and  second  series  in  book  form. 
This  last  report  showed  a  net  copyright  due  to  Mr.  Mitchell 
of  $921.23.  The  work  came  to  a  fourth  edition  published  in 
1851  by  Charles  Scribner,  with  a  new  preface  signed  by  Ik 
Marvel.  In  this  edition  the  authorship  was  for  the  first 
time  virtually  acknowledged. 

Donald  had  not  written  the  papers  which  make  up  The 
Lorgnette  in  any  spirit  of  levity;  he  had  put  into  them  sin 
cerity  and  earnestness.  To  this  fact,  no  doubt,  may  be  at 
tributed  much  of  their  success.  In  closing,  he  spoke  the 
faith  that  was  in  him: 

It  is  now  ten  months,  my  dear  Fritz,  since  I  first  put  on  the 
dignity  of  print,  and  undertook  to  tell  you  something  of  our  life  in 
town.  As  I  then  said,  a  hap-hazard  ramble  over  many  portions  of 
the  world,  and  a  feeling  that  some  modest  acknowledgment  was 
due  from  me  for  the  rich  amusement  that  the  public  had  so  long 

220 


SATIRIST    AND    DREAMER 

and  gratuitously  afforded,  prompted  me  to  begin.  I  had  also  a 
hope  that  while  my  letters  would  relieve  the  plethora  of  much  and 
long  observation,  they  might  in  their  small  way  do  a  trifle  of  good. 

But  it  was  no  part  of  my  purpose  to  make  my  work  altogether  a 
public  charity;  for  I  had  an  honest  conviction — not  currently 
entertained  by  our  town  writers — that  deeds  of  charity  would  be 
much  more  acceptable  in  the  way  of  spare  pennies,  than  in  any 
dribblings  from  a  pen. 

A  paragraphist  in  the  Literary  World  has  indeed  thrown  out  a 
hint  that  nothing  but  a  long  purse  could  justify  the  author's 
continuance  of  his  labor.  I  understand  this  to  be  a  pleasant  inti 
mation  (coming  too  from  an  experienced  source)  that  the  Lorgnette 
was  a  bill  of  expense  to  its  author.  To  have  my  open  avowal  on 
this  point  doubted  by  you,  Fritz,  would  grieve  me;  a  doubt  from 
some  quarters  might  provoke  me;  but  there  are  still  others,  I  am 
happy  to  say,  where  the  expression  of  such  doubt  is  neither  griev 
ous,  provoking,  nor  important. 

I  have  amused  myself  from  time  to  time  during  the  summer 
with  sauntering  into  my  publisher's  shop  to  overhear  the  remark 
and  to  watch  the  pleasant  brusquerie  of  my  excellent  friend,  Mr. 
Kernot.  Of  late,  however,  he  has  grown  suspicious  of  middle- 
aged  gentlemen  who  wear  a  half  country  air;  he  is  by  no  means  so 
communicative  as  at  the  first;  and  only  the  other  day  he  honored 
me  with  a  look  of  searching  scrutiny  that  required  all  my  self- 
possession  to  withstand. 

The  public  has  seen  fit  to  regard  these  letters  in  the  light  of 
strictures  upon  the  town  society.  It  was  by  no  means  my  wish  to 
give  them  so  narrow  a  limit;  nor  has  my  playful  raillery  borne  with 
it,  surely,  any  of  the  assumption  of  a  judge.  Still,  the  public  are 
welcome  to  their  decision;  and  in  view  of  it,  I  cannot  better  close 
than  by  setting  down  more  pointedly  than  I  have  yet  done,  a  few 
of  my  old-fashioned  opinions. 

221 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

But  first  let  me  spare  a  word  for  those  learned  coxcombs  who 
consider  all  talk  about  society  as  sheer  twaddle.  That  a  man  who 
knows  nothing  of  the  courtesies  of  life,  should  sneer  at  them  is  quite 
natural;  but  that  he  should  plume  himself  upon  his  ignorance  is  not 
a  little  extraordinary.  .  .  .  The  habits  of  amusement,  the  every 
day  practices,  and,  in  short,  all  those  observances  which  go  to  make 
up  what  is  called  fashion,  have  a  very  considerable  bearing  upon  the 
virtue,  the  manliness,  and  the  intelligence  of  a  people.  To  slight 
them,  while  careful  about  the  ordinary  claims  of  education,  is  to 
neglect  the  atmosphere  we  breathe,  while  anxious  only  for  our 
meat  and  drink. 

I  have  been  accused  of  balking  the  main  issues,  and  of  playing 
around  matters  which  needed  the  firm  touch  of  analysis;  but  I  take 
the  liberty  of  saying  that  these  scattered  shots  upon  the  town  have 
had  their  aim.  ...  It  seemed  to  me  to  be  an  honest  man's  work 
to  have  a  crack  at  those  follies  which  were  growing  upon  our  newly- 
formed  society;  and  the  more  honest,  since  nearly  all  the  journals 
of  the  town  were  approving  and  magnifying  whatever  fashion  de 
cided  upon  doing. 

The  absurd  intimations  which  I  have  seen  in  some  country 
papers  that  my  letters  were  written  merely  to  unfold  the  preten 
sions  of  the  vulgarly  rich,  or  the  follies  of  an  upper  ten  thousand,  I 
wholly  abjure;  if  I  cordially  detest  anything,  it  is  those  eternal 
railers  at  an  imaginary  set  whom  they  thus  designate.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  be  rich,  to  be  vulgar;  nor  to  be  vulgar,  to  be  rich. 
Folly  has  been  my  target,  wherever  it  appeared;  and  I  have  en 
deavored,  by  the  wide  range  of  my  observations,  to  do  away  with 
the  suspicion  that  I  ranked  vice  by  social  grades,  or  heaped  upon 
wealth  or  fashion  any  gratuitous  reproach. 

The  tone  of  all  my  letters  has  been  republican;  they  have 
tended,  in  their  humble  way,  towards  the  dismantling  of  those  awk 
ward  and  vulgar  scaffoldings  by  which  our  social  architects  of  the 
town  were  trying  to  build  up  something  like  the  gone-by  feudal  fab- 

222 


SATIRIST   AND    DREAMER 

rics  of  the  old  world.  I  have  pandered  to  none  of  the  finical  tastes 
of  an  "Upper  Ten" — to  none  of  the  foolish  longings  of  a  "Lower 
Ten,"  and  to  none  of  the  empty  and  ill-directed  clamor  of  those 
who  affect  to  guide  the  million.  John  Timon,  in  the  pride  of  his 
citizenship,  as  a  republican,  and  as  a  New  Yorker,  acknowledges 
no  Upper  Ten  !  He  will  live  where  he  chooses  to  live;  and  he  will 
amuse  himself  as  he  chooses  to  amuse  himself.  He  will  neither 
take  his  building  schemes  from  the  nod  of  Mr.  Such-an-one,  nor 
wear  his  glove  at  the  beck  of  Such-another.  He  will  try  to  consult 
those  proprieties  which  reason,  good  feeling,  and  good  custom 
suggest;  and  he  will  mingle  in  such  circles  as  will  receive  him  kindly, 
as  will  greet  him  with  a  manly  cordiality,  and  entertain  him  by 
such  frankness,  intelligence,  and  refinement,  as  he  thinks  he  can 
appreciate. 

Nor  do  I  apprehend  that  these  things  are  to  be  bounded  by 
houses,  or  by  streets;  or  that  any  man,  or  any  set  of  men,  can  lay 
down  the  codes  by  which  I  am  to  reach  them,  or  prescribe  the  ways 
in  which  I  am  to  enjoy  them.  Good  habit,  in  a  free  society,  is  as 
much  a  matter  of  taste  and  circumstance,  as  coloring  in  painting, 
or  the  management  of  the  rod  in  angling;  and  who,  pray,  is  going 
to  give  us  rules  for  the  precise  amount  of  chromes,  or  for  the  exact 
length  of  line,  or  the  dressing  of  a  hackle? 

Good  breeding  does  not  necessarily  suppose  a  knowledge  of  all 
conventionalities;  and  a  true  gentleman  can  in  no  way  better  show 
his  gentle  blood  than  by  the  grace  and  modesty  with  which  he 
wears  his  ignorance  of  special  formulas.  If  there  be  not  a  native 
courtesy  in  a  man  which  tells  him  when  he  is  with  gentlemen,  and 
when  with  the  vulgar;  and  which  informs  him,  as  it  were  by  intui 
tion,  what  will  conspire  with  the  actions  of  the  first,  and  offend 
against  the  sympathies  of  the  last,  he  may  study  till  doomsday  his 
etiquette,  and  his  French  Feuilleton,  and  remain  a  boor  to  the  end  ! 

To  conclude — as  the  Doctors  say — let  me  suggest  that  our  town 
society  needs  nothing  so  much  as  an  added  geniality,  honesty,  and 
simplicity.  It  hardly  seems  to  me  of  so  much  importance  that  our 

223 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

streets  should  show  a  Paris  pardessus  but  ten  days  old,  or  a  new 
polka  in  the  fortnight  of  its  introduction  along  the  Faubourg  St. 
Honore,  as  that  social  fellowship  should  become  easy  and  refined, 
and  a  little  wit,  taste,  and  grace  be  grafted  upon  the  body  of  our 
fashion. 

And  now  Fritz, 

"Timon  hath  done  his  reign  !" 

Mr.  Mitchell  never  saw  reason  to  regret  the  opinions  he 
voiced  in  his  little  periodical;  and  he  believed  in  their  sound 
ness  to  the  end.  "The  Lorgnette ',  whose  smart  couplet  of  vol 
umes  may  be  encountered  at  times  in  old  bookshops,  and 
which  belonged  also  to  the  early  period  of  the  writer's 
craft  in  books,  I  should  on  many  counts  have  heartily  greeted 
in  this  embanked  edition — assured  that  much  of  its  satiric 
comment  and  earnest  sermonizing  against  the  worship  of 
Mammon  would  still  have  aptness  and  significance/'  With 
these  words  Mr.  Mitchell  bade  farewell  to  the  books  when  in 
1907  they  were  omitted  from  the  Edgewood  edition  of  his 
collected  works. 

The  anonymity  of  The  Lorgnette^  and  the  accompanying 
attempt  on  the  part  of  the  public  to  search  out  the  true 
authorship,  led  to  important  results.  One  of  the  tests  ap 
plied  by  the  zealous  searchers  was  that  of  style.  When,  there 
fore,  The  Lorgnette  had  reached  its  twelfth  number,  and  sus 
picion  of  authorship  had  begun,  as  Mr.  Mitchell  said,  to 
settle  down  upon  his  own  name  "with  an  ugly  pertinacity," 
it  was  in  the  matter  of  style  that  he  determined  to  throw  the 
curious  off  the  scent.  It  so  happened  that  under  his  pseu 
donym  of  Ik  Marvel  he  had  contributed  a  paper  to  the 
Southern  Literary  Messenger •,  which,  under  the  title  of  "A 
Bachelor's  Reverie,"  appeared  in  the  issue  of  September 
1849,  and  was  reprinted  with  the  author's  permission  in  the 

224 


SATIRIST   AND   DREAMER 

first  number  of  Harper's  New  Monthly  Magazine,  January 
1850.  "Its  style  and  strain  being  wholly  unlike  that  of  the 
Lorgnette,  it  occurred  to  me,"  wrote  Mr.  Mitchell,  "that  it 
would  be  a  politic  thing,  and  further  my  purpose  of  mysti 
fying  the  literary  quidnuncs,  to  add  more  papers  in  a  kindred 
vein,  and  publish  all  together  as  an  independent  volume.  I 
wrote,  therefore,  the  two  succeeding  chapters,  and  submitted 
them,  with  the  one  previously  printed,  to  Mr.  Fields  (then 
of  the  house  of  Ticknor  &  Fields),  who  declined  their  publi 
cation.  I  had  made  this  proposal  to  a  Boston  house,  be 
cause  my  well-known  and  most  friendly  relations  with  Mr. 
Charles  Scribner,  and  his  half-understood  privity  to  the 
origin  of  the  Lorgnette  papers,  would  (in  the  event  of  my  pub 
lishing  the  new  book  with  him)  go  to  fasten  the  suspected 
authorship  more  strongly  upon  me.  .  .  .  Failing  of  an  out 
side  publisher,  the  little  book  was  speedily  put  through  the 
press  by  Mr.  Scribner — though  with  only  moderate  hopes, 
on  his  part,  of  its  success.  It  was,  however,  in  a  vein  that 
struck  people  as  being  somewhat  new;  it  made  easy  reading 
for  young  folks;  it  laid  strong  hold  upon  those  of  romantic 
appetites;  and  reached  within  a  very  few  months  a  sale  which 
surprised  the  publisher  as  much  as  it  surprised  the  author/'  * 
In  this  modest  way  Mr.  Mitchell  described  the  genesis  of 
the  book  which  almost  immediately  made  him  famous.2 

Reveries  of  a  Bachelor  was  published  in  December  1850. 
Before  the  month  was  gone  it  became  evident  that  the  author 
had  gripped  the  public.  Within  a  year  from  the  date  of 
publication  approximately  14,000  copies  had  been  sold. 
That  is  equivalent  now  to  a  sale  of  almost  70,0x30  copies 

1  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor,  xix-xxi. 

1  It  is  popularly  believed  that  Mr.  Mitchell  wrote  Reveries  in  his  little  farm 
house  at  Salem.  He  assured  his  family  that  he  had  never,  to  the  best  of  his  recol 
lection,  spent  a  night  under  its  roof. 

225 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

within  a  twelvemonth.  Reveries  went  straight  to  the  heart, 
and  readers  hastened  to  assure  the  author  of  their  delight 
in  his  work.  At  last  he  felt  that  he  was  coming  into  his 
own. 

Meanwhile,  during  the  summer  of  1851,  Fletcher  Harper, 
who  was  then  fathering  Harper  s  New  Monthly  Magazine, 
reached  out  for  the  young  author.  "We  wish,  monthly,  one 
or  two  pages  of  gems,  criticisms  on  society,  etc.,  etc.,  for  our 
magazine,  to  come  under  a  new  head,"  wrote  Mr.  Harper. 
"The  articles  ought,  generally,  I  suppose,  to  be  short  and 
lively.  We  wish  the  arrangement  to  be  confidential — en 
tirely  so — and  that  you  should  not  be  known  as  the  author  for 
the  present."  In  acceding  to  the  proposal,  Donald  suggested 
the  "Editor's  Easy  Chair"  as  suitable  heading  for  the  new 
department;  and  his  "first  installment  of  gossip"  from  "the 
red-backed  easy  chair"  appeared  in  Harper  s,  October  1851. 
He  continued  the  papers  until  1855.  In  succeeding  years, 
George  William  Curtis  and  William  Dean  Howells,  carrying 
on  the  tradition  established  by  Mr.  Mitchell,  added  lustre 
to  the  department.  So  long  and  so  successful  was  the  con 
nection  of  both  Mr.  Curtis  and  Mr.  Howells  with  the  "  Edi 
tor's  Easy  Chair"  that  their  names  have  become  identified 
with  it  in  a  kind  of  proprietary  way.  We  need  to  remember 
that  while  the  idea  originated  with  Fletcher  Harper,  the  name 
was  bestowed  by  Mr.  Mitchell,  and  the  trend  and  tone  of  the 
papers  established  by  him.  Indeed,  Mr.  Howells  in  later 
years  took  occasion  to  pay  tribute  to  this  work  of  Mr. 
Mitchell,  "the  graceful  and  gracious  Ik  Marvel  .  .  .  never 
unreal  in  anything  but  his  pretence  of  being  the  real  editor 
of  the  magazine."  l 

Elated  over  the  success  of  the  Reveries,  Donald  deter- 

1  See  Harper's  Magazine  (December  1900),  153-158. 
226 


SATIRIST   AND    DREAMER 

mined  to  write  another  book  of  similar  character.  The 
experiment  was  not  without  hazard,  as  his  friends  were  quick 
to  point  out  to  him.  "I  well  remember,"  he  wrote,  "that 
at  a  Yale  College  gathering1  which  followed  closely  upon  the 
publication  of  the  Reveries,  a  classmate  of  mine  (now  I  think 
holding  high  judicial  position)  took  me  aside  and  warned  me 
with  a  very  grave  and  solemn  countenance,  against  being 
made  a  puppet  of  the  publishers:  he  had  seen  with  good- 
natured  distress  that  I  was  to  follow  up  the  first  success  with 
another  book  in  the  same  vein  and  at  short  order:  he  feared 
the  result;  it  was  driving  things  too  hard.  I  listened  grate 
fully;  but,  it  must  be  said,  with  dulled  ears."  2 

Having  made  arrangements  to  live  with  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Allan  Sisson,  then  in  tenancy  of  the  Goddard  farm,  he  turned 
to  the  Salem  country  for  inspiration  and  quiet,  and  took  up 
his  abode  in  the  upper  west  room  of  the  Elmgrove  house,  the 
room  which  he  had  always  occupied  when  Mary  Goddard 
was  mistress  of  the  home.  There,  amid  silences  and  memo 
ries,  he  wrought  Dream  Life.  "  Young  sentiment  was  then  so 
jubilant  in  me  that  it  seemed  to  me  I  could  have  reeled  it  off 
by  scores;  nor  indeed  did  spontaneity  prove  lacking,"  he 
wrote  in  retrospect.  "It  was  to  a  quaint  old  farm-house 
shadowed  by  elms,  in  a  very  quiet  country  (whose  main 
features  peep  out  from  the  opening  chapters  of  Spring, 
Summer,  and  Autumn  in  this  volume),  that  I  went  to  finish 
my  summer  task — the  book  being  promised  for  early  winter. 
There  was  scant,  but  bracing,  farmer's  fare  for  me;  and  a 
world  of  encouragement  in  the  play  of  sun  and  shadow  over 

1  The  gathering  referred  to  was  undoubtedly  the  decennial  reunion  of  Mr. 
Mitchell's  class,  held  at  the  New  Haven  House,  Wednesday  evening,  July  joth, 
1851.    The  classmate  must  have  been  William  Law  Learned,  later,  and  for  many 
years,  a  member  of  the  supreme  court  of  New  York. 

2  See  all  of  the  1883  Preface  of  Dream  Life. 

227 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

the  tranquil  valley  landscape,  and  in  the  murmur  of  the 
brooks  that  I  had  known  of  old.  In  six  weeks  I  had  com 
pleted  my  task."1  The  dream  of  1848  was  fulfilled.  "I 
shall  write  an  eclogue  some  day  or  other,  and  make  the  pas 
torals  pipe  it  in  that  old  valley  of  our  farms."  When  Mary 
Goddard  read  Dream  Life  and  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor,  that 
sentence  from  Donald's  letter  must  have  come  once  more  to 
her  mind.2 

A  few  months  before  he  had  begun  the  writing  of  Dream 
Life,  Donald  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  Washington  Ir 
ving,  and  had  visited  him  at  Sunnyside;  now  as  the  book  was 
nearing  publication,  he  sought  Mr.  Irving's  permission  to 
dedicate  to  him  the  little  volume.  "Though  I  have  a  great 
disinclination  in  general  to  be  the  object  of  literary  oblations 
and  compliments,"  replied  Mr.  Irving,  "yet  in  the  present 
instance  I  have  enjoyed  your  writings  with  such  peculiar 
relish,  and  been  so  drawn  toward  the  author  by  the  qual 
ities  of  head  and  heart  evinced  in  them,  that  I  confess  I 
feel  gratified  by  a  dedication,  overflattering  as  I  may  deem 
it,  which  may  serve  as  an  outward  sign  that  we  are  cordially 
linked  together  in  sympathies  and  friendship."  With  its 
sincere  and  delicately  expressed  letter  of  dedication,  Dream 
Life  was  published  in  December  1851.  "Its  sale  the  first 
year,"  wrote  Mr.  Mitchell,  "went  beyond  that  of  the  Rev 
eries  ;  but  afterward  kept  an  even  range  at  about  one-third 
less  than  that  of  its  forerunner.  And  this  proportion  has 
held  with  curious  persistence;  no  accident  of  sales  having 
again  carried  its  score  up  to  that  of  the  first  book,  or  brought 
it  more  than  a  third  below."  The  relative  proportion  of 
sales  mentioned  by  Mr.  Mitchell  has  been  likewise  curiously 
persistent  since  he  wrote  the  foregoing  words  in  1883. 

1  Dream  Life,  vi.  2  See  p.  203. 

228 


SATIRIST    AND    DREAMER 

"Dream  Life  grew  out  of  the  Reveries  even  as  one  bubble 
piles  upon  another  from  the  pipe  out  of  which  young  breath 
blows  them  into  bigness;  and  it  was  largely  because  the  first 
floated  so  well  and  so  widely  that  life  and  consequence  were 
given  to  this  companion  book,"  were  the  apologetic  words 
of  Mr.  Mitchell  in  1883.     "I  am  half  ashamed  at  this  late 
day,"  he  continued,  "to  give  so  poor  excuse  for  the  writing 
of  Dream  Life ;  and  every  book  should  have  a  better  reason 
for  being  wrought,  than  its  good  chance  of  catching  a  popular 
tide,  and  floating  upon  it  to  success.    There  is  always  danger 
of  strain  in  work  so  undertaken  and  of  weak  duplication, 
and  vague  echoes  of  foregone  things."     We  know  that  it 
was  not  alone  the  success  of  the  Reveries  that  led  to  the  pro 
duction  of  Dream  Life.     It  was  rather  the  glowing  heart  of 
the  man.    The  books  were  the  outgrowth  of  the  stresses  to 
which  for  more  than  a  score  of  years  his  soul  had  been  sub 
jected.     He  could  have  written  others  in  similar  strain  with 
out  weak  duplication.     Indeed,  he  had  planned  one  other  to 
be  called  Hearts  of  Girlhood.    As  sketched  by  him,  it  was  to 
be   in    four   parts:    "The   Faint   Hearted,"    "The   Broken 
Hearted,"  "The  False  Hearted,"  "The  True  Hearted."     Mr. 
Mitchell  himself  evidently  had  faith  in  his  ability  to  write 
it.     "If  this  book  had  been  written,  on  the  wave  of  success 
which  attended  the  Reveries  I  have  no  doubt  't  would  have 
disputed  claims  with  it,"  runs  the  note  which  more  than 
fifty  years  after  the  notion  had  presented  itself  to  him  he 
placed  on  the  margin  of  the  page  containing  the  preliminary 
outline  of  Hearts  of  Girlhood. 

The  great  and  immediate  success  of  Reveries  and  Dream 
Life,  the  quick  homage  paid  to  the  young  author  by  people  of 
all  ages,  and  the  extravagant  devotion  of  girls  and  young 
women,  were  enough  to  turn  the  head  of  any  but  a  man  of 

229 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

sound  common  sense  and  sterling  character.  From  far  dis 
tant  States  and  Territories  of  the  Union,  from  "  the  isles  of  the 
ocean,"  from  France  and  Italy,  from  Norway  and  Sweden, 
from  the  heart  of  Germany,  the  mails  brought  to  Ik  Marvel 
striking  testimony  that  he  had  touched  the  common  heart 
of  humanity.  The  "packet  of  letters"  to  which  he  refers 
in  the  "Second  Reverie"  received  plentiful  addition,  and 
needed  new  and  larger  ribbons.  In  fact,  the  one  packet 
grew  to  many,  and  the  many  continued  to  grow  until  death 
claimed  the  "Great  Dreamer."  Languishing  Adas,  and 
Claras,  and  Carries,  and  Jennies,  and  Dorothys,  and  Mary 
"darlings,"  showered  him  with  valentines.  Other  and  more 
ardent  maidens  wrote  to  inquire  whether  the  author  really 
was  a  bachelor;  and,  with  the  assurance  that  their  hearts 
alone  could  understand  and  comfort  that  of  Ik  Marvel, 
coyly  offered  themselves  in  marriage.  Much  verse  was  dedi 
cated  to  him.  Young  people  wrote  for  advice  and  sympathy 
in  their  own  love-affairs.  The  old  wrote  to  testify  that  age 
and  experience  confirmed  the  words  of  his  pen.  One  young 
French  musician  dedicated  a  polka  to  Ik  Marvel.  With  the 
cool  judgment  of  maturer  life,  Mr.  Mitchell  came  to  feel  that 
he  had  been  the  recipient  of  "absurd  overpraise,"  and  was 
of  the  opinion  that  because  of  it  he  had  been  led  to  under 
value  reputation. 

An  amusing  sidelight  is  thrown  upon  this  period  of  fevered 
success  by  letters  of  Louis  Mitchell  to  Mary  Goddard. 
These  letters  also  impart  the  interesting  information  that  a 
new  and  supposedly  more  enduring  kind  of  work  was  being 
urged  upon  Donald.  The  two  brothers,  Louis  and  Alfred, 
were  in  Europe  when  Reveries  was  published,  though  they 
were  not  long  in  hearing  echoes  of  its  praise.  Louis  out 
wardly  affected  a  scorn  of  sentiment,  and  loved  to  scoff 

230 


SATIRIST    AND    DREAMER 

good-naturedly  at  what  he  called  "Don's  vaporings."  He 
was  just  the  man  to  sprinkle  cool  irony  upon  the  heat  and 
flame  of  a  young  author's  distemper.  From  Rome,  under 
date  of  January  22d,  he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Goddard:  "I  sent  Don 
some  interesting  information  the  other  day  through  Henry 
Huntington  to  whom  I  took  it  into  my  head  to  write.  .  .  . 
By  the  way,  his  book  has  now  been  out  a  month.  How  does 
it  go  ?  like  hot  cakes  ?  ...  in  case  Henry  Huntington  should 
not  receive  my  letter,  tell  Don  that  Enrica  is  married,  and 
supposed  by  this  time  to  be  the  mother  of  a  young  TURK. 
She  is  living  in  Constantinople.  Alas,  for  romance  !  How  I 
went  off  in  laughing  when  my  landlady  (who  knows  her) 
told  me  that,  you,  Mary,  can  imagine,  I  fancy.  Lucky  Don 
didn't  know  it  when  he  was  cooking  up  the  Reveries — eh  ?" 
Again,  about  the  ist  of  July  1851,  he  wrote  from  Paris: 
"I  left  Florence  on  the  ist  of  May  .  .  .  staid  in  Venice  .  .  . 
three  weeks;  then  by  the  steamer  to  Tristi;  thence  to  the 
Grotto  of  Adelsburg  where  Boldo  told  story.  It  is  a  curious 
cavern,  and  interesting  to  those  who  see  it  after  reading  the 
same;  but  more  so  to  those  who  have  read  the  same  without 
seeing.  ...  I  have  seen  Don's  friend,  Mr.  Mann,  who  tells 
me  Don  has  taken  his  stand  among  the  first  literary  [men] 
of  these  times.  .  .  .  Don  wouldn't  make  a  good  country 
squire,  nor  a  merchant.  The  inevitable  consequences  of  a 
wife  are  care  and  babies,  and  Don  wouldn't  like  either  after 
the  first  day  or  two.  Can't  he  be  persuaded  to  write  some 
thing  that  will  last  ?  His  Reveries  are  well  enough  in  their 
way,  but  ten  years  hence  they  won't  help  him  much.  Let 
him  write  a  history  of  Venice.  He  has  the  frame  of  it  in 
his  lecture.  This,  Mary,  is  between  you  and  me.  You  know 
how  he'd  look  if  he  saw  ;'/,  especially  just  now  with  his  laurels 
fresh  and  the  dimes  jingling  in  his  pocket.  No  less  true  for 

231 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

all  that,  though.  Huntington  tried  to  start  him  on  it  be 
fore  I  left,  and  then  he  seemed  to  take  the  idea  kindly 
enough.  How  it  will  be  now,  I  don't  know.  As  to  marry 
ing,  keep  him  talking  about  it,  and  it  will  be  all  right 
enough." 

The  first  large  sales  of  the  two  little  books  diminished,  of 
course,  but  they  diminished  only  to  settle  down  to  a  steady 
and  widely  extended  circulation.  In  1852  two  separate, 
unauthorized  editions  were  published  in  Great  Britain.  By 
1853  two  separate,  unauthorized  translations  of  Reveries 
appeared  in  Paris — one  in  the  Moniteur,  the  other  in  L* Illus 
tration.  In  1856  Karl  Elze  included  both  volumes  in  Alphons 
Diirr's  collection1  of  "Standard  American  Authors,"  in  Eng 
lish;  and  in  the  same  year  a  German  translation  by  Ch  .  .  . 
was  published  by  Carl  Meyer  in  Hanover.  Both  came  to 
translation  and  wide  circulation  in  many  languages.  In 
America,  apart  from  those  issued  by  the  Scribners,  Mr. 
Mitchell's  authorized  publishers,  more  than  fifty  totally 
different  editions  of  both  have  been  placed  before  the  public. 

Mr.  Mitchell  was  seemingly  embarrassed  by  the  warmth 
of  the  reception  accorded  the  little  volumes,  and  came  to 
speak  of  them  apologetically.  He  evinced  surprise  at  the 
manner  in  which  they  had  touched  the  heart,  at  the  hold  they 
had  taken  upon  the  public,  at  their  enduring  life.  He  was  in 
the  habit  of  insisting  that  he  had  written  "very  much  better 
books  every  way."  His  attitude,  however,  grew  in  part  out 
of  his  natural  diffidence;  at  bottom,  he  cherished  a  deep 
respect  and  affection  for  these  children  of  his  youth.  Re 
ferring  to  the  Reveries  in  1883,  he  wrote:  "I  am  not  certain 
that  I  would  blot  out  from  staid  people's  knowledge  what 

1  Published  at  Leipzig.     Reveries  was  No.  xv,  Dream  Life  No.  xvi,  in  the  col 
lection. 

232 


SATIRIST    AND    DREAMER 

they  may  count  the  idle  vagaries  and  wanton  word-leaps 
and  the  over-tenderness  of  this  book,  even  though  I  could. 
Whatever  the  astute  critics  may  think,  I  do  not  and  will  not 
believe  that  the  boisterous  and  scathing  and  rollicking  humor 
of  our  time  has  blown  all  of  pathos  and  all  of  the  more  del 
icate  human  sympathies  into  limbo."  1 

In  fact,  he  had  strong  belief  in  the  honesties  of  the  books, 
knowing  well  out  of  what  stress  of  soul  they  had  been  born. 
"I  wrote  Dream  Life  while  the  glow  was  on,"  he  once  told 
me;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  it  he  expressed  what 
were  at  the  time  the  burning  convictions  of  his  heart.  Nor 
did  he  ever  have  reason  to  question  the  fundamental  truth  of 
what  he  had  written.  He  had  expected  criticism,  and  had 
been  sharply  subjected  to  much,  upon  the  publication  of  the 
Reveries.  When,  therefore,  he  wrote  Dream  Life,  he  took 
occasion  to  say  a  word  in  self-defense.  "This  is  a  history  of 
dreams,"  he  began,  "and  there  will  be  those  who  will  sneer 
at  such  a  history  as  the  work  of  a  dreamer."  And  then  he 
proceeded  to  explain  that  dreams  as  he  conceived  of  them 
are  the  very  substance  of  man's  truest  life.  "I  can  conceive 
no  mood  of  mind  more  in  keeping  with  what  is  to  follow  upon 
the  grave,  than  those  fancies  which  warp  our  frail  hulks 
toward  the  ocean  of  the  Infinite,  and  that  so  sublimate  the 
realities  of  this  being  that  they  seem  to  belong  to  that 
shadowy  realm  whither  every  day's  journey  is  leading."  2 
He  asked  people  to  believe  only  that  portion  of  his  work 
which  "counts  most  toward  the  goodness  of  humanity,"  and 

1  See  Reveries,  xxii-xxiii.    "I  am  now  correcting  proofs  of  the  new  edition  of 
Reveries,  the  first  volume  of  new  issue  of  most  of  my  books,"  he  wrote  to  his 
daughter  Elizabeth  in  1883.      "Oh,  it  is  very  young — whatever  the  syntax  be!     If 
I  were  rich,  I  should  be  tempted  to  put  it  all  in  the  fire;  and  yet — there  are  some 
good  things  in  it." 

2  See  Dream  Life,  5. 

233 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

that  tends  to  the  upbuilding  of  faith;  strongly  convinced 
himself  that  both  books  counted  for  goodness  of  life  and 
strengthening  of  faith.  "The  man,  or  the  woman,  who  be 
lieves  well  is  apt  to  work  well;  and  faith  is  as  much  the  key 
to  happiness  here,  as  it  is  the  key  to  happiness  hereafter."  l 
When  the  Nelsons  brought  out  in  Edinburgh  an  unauthorized 
edition  of  Dream  Life,  with  the  chapter  on  "Boy  Religion" 
omitted,  the  omission  displeased  him  perhaps  more  than  the 
pirating  of  the  book.  "I  could  have  wished,"  he  wrote, 
"that  the  book  had  been  altogether  so  good  as  to  have  justi 
fied  them  in  making  the  theft  complete,  or  altogether  so  bad 
as  to  have  kept  them  honestly  aloof."  He  believed  in  the 
truth  and  the  efficacy  of  that  particular  chapter;  and,  I 
doubt  not,  considered  it  as  well-nigh  the  most  valuable  in 
the  book. 

He  did  not  like  to  regard  these  volumes  as  expressions  of 
sentimentality,  and  that  only;  as  pleasant  fictions  addressed 
to  love-lorn  swains  and  languishing  maidens.  It  irritated  him 
to  have  people  refer  to  the  pleasure  they  had  taken  in  them 
in  their  "salad  days";  he  seemed  to  think  such  a  remark  to 
be  in  effect  a  slur.  To  be  sure,  he  believed  that  in  them  he 
had  spoken  words  of  understanding,  of  sympathy,  of  con 
solation,  from  the  deepest  springs  of  his  common  humanity; 
but  he  believed  no  less  strongly  that  he  had  likewise  spoken 
words  of  courage,  of  hope,  of  inspiration,  and  of  duty.  He 
believed,  in  short,  that  the  books  contained  that  which 
would  at  all  times  appeal  to  the  highest  and  the  best  qualities 
of  human  nature. 

In  his  old  age  he  was  intensely  gratified  to  learn  that  even 
after  the  lapse  of  forty-five  years  the  spell  of  Reveries  and 
Dream  Life  had  not  lost  its  hold  upon  such  a  man  as  Sir 

1  See  Dream  Life,  20. 
234 


SATIRIST   AND    DREAMER 

Robert  Stout,  New  Zealand's  famous  jurist  and  statesman, 
upon  whose  estimate  of  the  books  Mr.  Mitchell  set  much 
store.  "These  books/'  wrote  Sir  Robert,  "are  true  litera 
ture,  and  as  such  demand  not  a  hasty  perusal,  but  repeated 
careful  reading.  They  enter  into  the  feelings  of  old  and 
young;  and  to  all  a  message  is  delivered.  When  it  is  remem 
bered  that  both  books  were  written  by  a  young  man,  the 
staidness,  the  calmness,  and  the  judiciousness  of  the  writer 
will  appear  surprising."  L  And  most  careful  readers  will 
agree  with  the  substance  of  Sir  Robert's  opinion  that  when 
we  close  such  books,  the  profound  truth  of  the  oft-quoted 
lines  of  England's  greatest  dramatist — lines  which  Mr. 
Mitchell  placed  upon  the  title-page  of  Dream  Life  as  a  clew 
to  its  interpretation — come  home  to  us: 

We  are  such  stuff 

As  dreams  are  made  of;  and  our  little  life 
Is  rounded  with  a  sleep. 

Many  thousands  of  men  could  bear  witness,  as  many 
hundreds  have  done,  to  the  inspirational  power  of  these 
books.  Young  men  have  found  in  them  impulses  to  higher 
and  nobler  living,  wise  counsels  upon  the  problems  of  life, 
trumpet-calls  to  duty.  How  many  have  made  such  passages 
as  the  following  mottoes  for  daily  living,  we  shall  never  know: 

He  is  a  weak  man  who  cannot  twist  and  weave  the  threads  of 
his  feeling — however  fine,  however  tangled,  however  strained,  or 
however  strong — into  the  great  cable  of  Purpose,  by  which  he  lies 
moored  to  his  life  of  Action.* 

Life  is  calling  for  earnestness,  and  not  for  regrets.' 

1  "A  Night  with  Two  Old  Books,"  in  the  Press  of  Christchurch,  New  Zealand, 
December  29th,  1902. 

*  Reveries,  55.  »  Reveries,  119. 

235 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

The  past  belongs  to  God;  the  present  only  is  ours.  And  short 
as  it  is,  there  is  more  in  it  and  of  it  than  we  can  well  manage. 
That  man  who  can  grapple  it,  and  measure  it,  and  fill  it  with  his 
purpose,  is  doing  a  man's  work;  none  can  do  more;  but  there  are 
thousands  who  do  less.1 

Stop  not,  loiter  not,  look  not  backward,  if  you  would  be  among 
the  foremost.  The  great  Now — so  quick,  so  broad,  so  fleeting — is 
yours;  in  an  hour  it  will  belong  to  the  Eternity  of  the  Past.  The 
temper  of  life  is  to  be  made  good  by  big,  honest  blows;  stop  striking 
and  you  will  do  nothing;  strike  feebly,  and  you  will  do  almost  as 
little.  Success  rides  on  every  hour;  grapple  it,  and  you  may  win; 
but  without  a  grapple,  it  will  never  go  with  you.  Work  is  the 
weapon  of  honor,  and  who  lacks  the  weapon  will  never  triumph.2 

You  will  learn  .  .  .  that  there  is  no  genius  in  life  like  the  ge 
nius  of  energy  and  industry.  You  will  learn  that  all  the  tradi 
tions  so  current  among  very  young  men  that  certain  great  char 
acters  have  wrought  their  greatness  by  an  inspiration,  as  it  were, 
grow  out  of  a  sad  mistake.3 

Resolve  is  what  makes  a  man  manliest; — not  puny  resolve,  not 
crude  determination,  not  errant  purpose;  but  that  strong  and  inde 
fatigable  will  which  treads  down  difficulties  and  dangers  as  a  boy 
treads  down  the  heaving  frost-lands  of  winter — which  kindles  his 
eye  and  brain  with  a  proud  pulse-beat  toward  the  unattainable.4 

In  a  pleasing  tribute,  Mr.  James  Lawler  has  called  atten 
tion  to  this  inspirational,  this  heartening,  quality  of  Mr. 
Mitchell's  work: 

Yet,  Strong  Enchanter  of  the  Hearth, 
To  us  thou  never  canst  expire. 
Oft  when  our  inward  light  is  low, 

1  Reveries,  219.  -Reveries,  237. 

3  Dream  Life,  134-135.  4  Dream  Life,  207-208. 

236 


SATIRIST   AND    DREAMER 

We'll  gather  'round  thy  beech-wood  fire 
To  dream  amid  thy  rods  and  books 
Of  wider  times  and  larger  men, 
Till,  heartened  by  thy  sympathy, 
We  buckle  on  our  arms  again.* 

This  is  not  the  place  to  undertake  a  critical  estimate  of 
Reveries  and  Dream  Life;  such  an  estimate  should  be  the 
work  of  a  critic,  not  of  a  biographer.  Popularity  and  great 
sales  do  not  necessarily  indicate  true  worth,  nor  are  they 
any  guaranty  of  enduring  fame.  It  is  perhaps  too  early  to 
attempt  an  evaluation  of  these  books.  But  this  much  can 
be  said.  The  vitality  which  they  have  shown  for  now  almost 
a  century  seems  to  indicate  qualities  that  belong  to  enduring 
literature;  qualities  that  men  do  not  willingly  allow  to  perish. 
The  books  are  true  to  the  best  thoughts  and  emotions  of 
humanity,  and  to  that  extent  are  beyond  the  power  of  time. 
Already  they  have  become  American  classics.  That  which 
has  kept  alive  the  work  of  Izaak  Walton,  and  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  and  Charles  Lamb,  and  Washington  Irving,  will 
also  keep  alive  the  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor  and  Dream  Life. 
And  by  virtue  of  these  books,  Mr.  Mitchell  will  rank  along 
with  his  beloved  Irving. 

During  the  years  1850  and  1851,  Mr.  Mitchell  had  per 
haps  earned  more  with  his  pen  than  he  could  have  earned  in 
any  other  way.  He  now  felt  sure  that  if  driven  to  it  by 
necessity  he  could  earn  a  livelihood  by  literature.  As  yet, 
however,  he  seemed  to  himself  no  nearer  a  choice  of  life-work 
than  he  was  in  1849.  As  a  first  step  toward  a  decision,  he 
had  in  1850  sold  his  Salem  farm.  He  was  planning  to 
secure  a  country  place  to  his  liking  upon  which  he  could 
settle  down  and  devote  himself  to  farming  and  literature — 

1  See  Mr.  Lawler's  "Ik  Marvel,"  Canadian  Magazine,  February  1909. 

237 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

to  farming  primarily;  to  literature  as  a  recreation  and  a 
delight.  He  was  at  the  crest  of  his  wave  of  fame.  Society 
was  seeking  and  flattering  him.  All  circles  were  open. 
And  yet,  with  all  circles  open,  he  knew  not  which  way  to 
turn.  The  future,  however,  was  dawning  before  him  more 
brightly  than  he  knew. 


IX 

AN  EVENTFUL  TWELVEMONTH 

A  new  book  of  hope  is  sprung  wide  open  in  my  life:  a  hope  of 
home  ! — Reveries  of  a  Bachelor,  262. 

The  season  of  triumph  which  followed  almost  immedi 
ately  upon  the  publication  of  Reveries  and  Dream  Life 
undoubtedly  interfered  with  creative  work  on  the  part  of  the 
author.  It  is  certain,  at  least,  that  for  several  months, 
apart  from  his  contributions  to  Harper's,  Donald  did  not 
apply  himself  seriously  to  literature.  Only  in  1852  did  he 
begin  The  Fudge  Papers  for  the  Knickerbocker  Magazine. 
For  several  months  after  the  publication  of  Dream  Life  he 
lived  on  in  his  usual  unsatisfied,  unsettled  way,  varying  his 
place  of  residence  from  New  York  City  to  Norwich;  or  spend 
ing  the  time  in  travel. 

As  the  summer  of  1852  approached,  his  old  restlessness 
having  returned  upon  him,  and  his  fancy  being  for  the  mo 
ment  dulled,  he  decided  to  see  Europe  once  more.  While  in 
New  York  arranging  for  his  passage,  he  learned  that  Wash 
ington  Irving,  for  the  first  time  in  many  years,  was  enjoying 
a  season  at  Saratoga  Springs.  He  forthwith  determined  to 
see  Mr.  Irving  for  a  few  days  before  sailing.  Once  under  the 
spell  of  Irving's  spirit,  it  was  but  natural  for  Donald  to  linger. 
Where,  better  than  at  Saratoga,  could  the  harmless  vanities 
of  a  famous  young  bachelor-author  be  fed  ?  To  share  the 
morning  walks  of  Washington  Irving,  to  be  known  as  his 
friend,  to  be  praised  publicly  by  him,  to  be  sought  after  on 

239 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

every  hand — these  were  joys  not  to  be  quickly  foregone, 
even  by  so  retiring  and  modest  a  man  as  Mr.  Mitchell. 

The  portrait  by  Charles  Loring  Elliott  brings  before  us 
the  features  of  the  Ik  Marvel  who,  during  that  Saratoga 
summer,  enjoyed  the  culmination  of  his  triumph.  As  we 
look  upon  it,  there  rises  before  us  an  image  of  a  slender, 
active  young  man — not  above  medium  height — with  deli 
cately  moulded  face,  and  large,  dreamful  blue  eyes.  About 
the  shapely  head  fall  brown  masses  of  careless,  wind-blown 
hair;  and  across  the  features  lies  an  elusive  half-shadow  of 
sorrow.  The  clothes  are  tasteful,  but  loose  and  easy-fitting, 
as  if  designed  for  comfort  rather  than  for  looks.  A  large  red 
silk  scarf — expression  of  a  lifelong  love  of  color — helps  us 
to  understand  why,  as  he  flashed  across  the  horizon  of  that 
fashionable  society,  he  came  to  be  called  the  "Comet's 
Tail."  Morning  after  morning  we  see  this  young  man  stroll 
ing  along  the  walk  to  the  Spring  in  company  with  an  older, 
more  soberly  dressed  gentleman,  whose  face  and  eyes  pro 
claim  that  he,  too,  is  a  dreamer  and  acquainted  with  grief. 
We  listen  to  their  conversation,  watch  the  animated  ex 
pression  of  their  faces,  hear  their  gay  laughter.  In  the  pres 
ence  of  the  Elliott  portrait  we  can  forget  the  present  and  re 
vive  the  past. 

Among  others  who  came  from  the  South  in  those  days  to 
spend  their  summers  at  Saratoga  were  members  of  the  family 
of  William  Bull  Pringle,  a  rice-planter,  of  King  Street, 
Charleston,  and  Society  Hill,  South  Carolina.  It  must  have 
been  toward  the  end  of  July  or  the  first  of  August  that  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Pringle  arrived  at  the  Springs  with  their  daughters, 
Mary  Frances  and  Susan,  and  their  niece,  Susan  Alston. 
Scarcely  had  they  arrived,  when  a  common  friend  rushed  to 
Mary  with  the  news  that  presumably  should  have  been  most 

240 


From  a  portrait  of  Mr.  Mitchell  by  Charles  Loring  Elliot,  painted  about  1851. 


AN   EVENTFUL   TWELVEMONTH 

interesting  from  a  young  woman's  point  of  view:  "Ik  Marvel 
is  here.  Don't  you  want  to  meet  him?"  Miss  Pringle,  it 
seems,  was  not  in  search  of  literary  lions.  "No,"  she  re 
plied  to  the  surprised  friend,  "I  don't  want  to  meet  him. 
If  he  wants  to  meet  me,  very  well."  When  this  reply  was 
reported  to  Donald,  it  quite  naturally  piqued  his  curiosity 
and  aroused  his  interest.  Unwittingly,  she  had  spoken  just 
the  words  to  attract  a  man  of  his  character.  He  sought  an 
introduction,  and  was  charmed  by  Miss  Pringle's  radiant 
beauty.  That  she  was  more  than  merely  beautiful,  each  day 
revealed  to  him.  Her  strong  common  sense,  her  disdain  of 
the  methods  usually  employed  by  the  fashionable  butter 
flies  who  fluttered  about  the  eligible,  her  tender  and  thought 
ful  devotion  to  her  parents,  disclosed  to  him  the  worth  of  her 
character.  Almost  before  he  knew  it,  his  admiration  had 
deepened  into  love.  Europe  vanished  from  his  mind.  To 
win  the  heart  of  this  rare  Southern  girl  now  became  his 
absorbing  purpose.  Under  the  watchful  and  benignant 
eyes  of  Washington  Irving,  the  courtship  proceeded. 

The  very  name — Mary — aroused  in  Donald  the  tenderest 
emotions,  and  he  was  not  long  in  pressing  whatever  advan 
tage  lay  in  the  intimate  relation  which  it  had  thus  far  borne 
to  his  own  life.  Within  a  few  days  he  gave  to  Miss  Pringle 
a  copy  of  Fresh  Gleanings  bearing  this  inscription: 

This  first  book  of  my  author-life  being  dedicated 
to  '  Mary,'  seems,  in  so  far,  a  fitting  gift  for  my  friend, 

Miss  Mary  Pringle; 

and  I  shall  claim  from  her  the  same  charity  which 

her  namesake  has  shown.  ~         ~   ,,.    ,    n 

Dond  G.  Mitchell 

Saratoga  Springs,  "Ik  Marvel." 

10  Aug.  1852. 

241 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

There,  amid  the  pines  of  Saratoga,  a  new  hope  and  a  more 
compelling  power  than  he  had  ever  known  were  coming  into 
his  life.  Little  wonder  that  his  memories  of  Saratoga  never 
grew  dim.  "Is  there  an  everlasting  fountain  of  youth  there 
upon  the  plains  of  Saratoga?"  he  asked,  seventeen  years 
later.  "Or  is  it  that  an  ever-new  stream  of  bright,  young 
faces  is  flowing  thitherward,  while  we,  looking  on  (even  in 
picture)  grow  young  again,  and  recall  the  gay  old  times 
when  we  quaffed  the  sparkling  waters,  when  we  sauntered 
under  the  heavy  shadows  of  the  pines,  when  we  too  could 
win  a  chance  smile  from  some  one  of  the  provoking  fair  ? 
Ah,  well-a-day!  The  fountain  flows  forever — the  bubble 
and  the  sparkle  fail  not;  but  the  fresh  young  blood  it  feeds 
and  exalts  must  come  to  its  season  of  loitering,  of  heaviness, 
and  of  rest.  But  loiter  as  it  may,  most  times  it  leaps  once 
again  with  quick  flow  over  the  memory  of  young  days  at 
Saratoga."  1 

Toward  the  end  of  August  the  Pringles  went  on  to  New 
port  and  Boston,  and  thence  by  way  of  Portland  across  the 
White  Mountains.  Donald,  full  of  strange  emotions — "feel 
ings  like  half-forgotten  memories,  mystical,  dreamy,  doubt 
ful" —followed  in  their  wake.  On  the  I2th  of  September, 
from  Portland,  Maine,  he  wrote  to  Mary  Goddard.  We  can 
read  between  the  lines  of  this  letter  as  Mrs.  Goddard  at  the 
time  could  not.  She  doubtless  thought  that  Donald  was 
wandering  in  his  old  spirit  of  restlessness;  she  knew  nothing 
as  yet  of  the  new  passion  that  was  struggling  in  his  soul. 
"Here  I  am,"  he  wrote,  "a  long  way  to  the  northward,  in  a 
storm  which  will  very  likely  pass  for  the  equinoctial.  My 
stay  at  Newport  was  for  some  ten  days,  and  only  so  so,  for 
agr ee  ability .  My  old  friends,  the  Pringles,  were  there.  .  .  . 

1  "At  the  Spring:  Saratoga,"  in  Hearth  and  Home  (August  28th,  1869),  568. 

242 


AN    EVENTFUL   TWELVEMONTH 

I  also  saw,  and  passed  a  cozy  forenoon  with,  Prof,  and  Mrs. 
Longfellow.  He  is  a  most  agreeable  man — nothing  bookish 
about  him — and  Mrs.  Longfellow  is  just  what  you  might 
expect  of  Mary  Ashburton,  though  not  so  pretty.  I  also 
dined  very  pleasantly  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bancroft,  who 
showed  me  very  kind  attentions.  .  .  .  Whipple  (the  lec 
turer,  etc.)  was  very  kind  in  his  attentions  at  Boston,  asking 
me  to  dine,  and  calling  once  or  twice.  I  also  received  an 
invitation  to  lecture  before  the  Boston  Mercantile  Library. 
I  returned  a  conditional  answer.  It  is  my  purpose  to  go 
across  the  White  Mountains  from  here,  and  thence  down  the 
Connecticut  to  Norwich  by  the  close  of  the  week.  The 
Pringles  are  making  the  same  town,  although,  strange  to 
say,  I  have  not  met  them  since  leaving  Newport.  I  am  get 
ting  just  now  thoroughly  tired  of  wandering,  and  follow  it 
up  for  the  sake  (partly)  of  giving  myself  a  surfeit,  and  ac 
cumulating  a  stock  of  quiet  content.  Everybody  asks  me 
what  work  I  am  engaged  upon,  and  I  am  sufficiently  ashamed 
to  plead  guilty  to — nothing."  Now  and  then  it  was  his  good 
fortune  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  Miss  Pringle — sometimes  on  the 
mountains,  sometimes  in  the  busy  streets  of  cities.  It  ap 
pears  that  his  native  shyness  caused  him  to  worship  from 
afar;  but  he  took  care  that  an  emissary  now  and  then  found 
its  way  to  Miss  Pringle.  The  inscription  shows  that  on  the 
28th  of  September  he  gave  her  a  specially  bound  copy  of 
Reveries,  illustrated  by  Darley.  Evidently  he  felt  confident 
that  its  leaven  would  work. 

Only  too  soon  did  the  delightful,  tantalizing  autumn  pass, 
and  the  Pringles  return  to  their  Southern  home.  We  can 
imagine  the  state  of  mind  in  which  Donald  turned  to  face 
the  winter  and  its  literary  tasks.  He  struggled  manfully 
for  a  time;  but  the  Southland  was  calling,  and  he  determined 

243 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

to  go  and  put  his  fate  to  the  touch.  When,  evidently  unan 
nounced,  he  reached  Charleston  in  December,  he  was  disap 
pointed  to  find  that  Mary  Pringle  was  away  from  home.  He 
went  on  to  Savannah  and  from  there  on  the  2jd  of  December 
wrote  what  was,  in  substance,  a  letter  of  proposal.  All  who 
have  read  with  joy  the  letter  to  Margaret  Boyne1  will  be  glad 
to  read  the  one  into  which  Ik  Marvel  put  not  his  fancy,  but 
his  whole  self.  Doubtless,  as  the  two  had  strolled  about  the 
walks  of  Saratoga,  or  wandered  over  the  free  mountain  spaces 
of  New  Hampshire,  Donald  had  voiced  the  hope  of  one  day 
preaching  a  sermon — a  strictly  private  sermon — intended  to 
do  its  hearer  "good."  Frustrated  in  his  attempt  to  deliver 
such  sermon,  he  turned  to  the  preparation  of  an  epistle  ! 

Pulaski  House,  Savannah. 
2jd  Dec'r  1852. 

I  cannot  pass  altogether  out  of  the  reach  of  Charleston  without 
wishing  Miss  Pringle  a  most  'Merry  Christmas/  and  without  ex 
pressing  my  disappointment  at  not  having  found  her  in  the  city, 
and  at  being  obliged  to  write  a  'sermon'  which  I  had  hoped  to 
whisper  in  her  ear. 

You  surely  must  remember  our  talk  of  a  'sermon;' — a  sermon 
which,  four  or  five  successive  times,  I  have  tried  to  write;  and  have 
only  failed  of  accomplishing,  because  I  could  not  presume  upon 
'doing  you  good.' 

To  this  limitation,  you  will  remember  that  you  confined  me:  and 
in  view  of  it,  had  I  not  a  most  narrow  measure  of  hope? 

But  now  you  are  away,  and  therefore  I  put  upon  paper  what 
else  I  would  most  surely  have  whispered  in  your  ear. 

I  know  you  for  a  true  lady  in  all  gentleness,  and  in  all  pride  of 
feeling;  and  as  such  I  need  not  say  (for  you  know  it)  that  I  have 
admired  you,  and  esteemed  you,  and  loved  you. 

And  now  may  I  come  back  to  Charleston  in  the  hope  of  meeting 

1  See  Dream  Life,  232. 
244 


AN   EVENTFUL   TWELVEMONTH 

you  with  such  avowal  on  my  lips  ?  Or  must  I  count  your  figure  and 
manner  and  character  only  as  a  pleasant  phantasm  which  has 
chased  for  a  little  while  across  the  track  of  my  vagrant  and  shadowy 
life? 

I  am  sure  that  with  your  true  womanly  discernment  you  know 
very  much  of  my  character  already;  and  I  shall  tell  you  nothing 
more  here,  except  that  I  am  full  of  all  the  petulancies,  and  passion, 
and  ambition,  and  pride,  which  belong  to  an  American  of  thirty 
years.  Nor  have  I  any  greater  fortune  to  bestow  than  will  provide 
the  comforts  of  a  quiet  country  life: — saving  only  such  as  can  be 
wrought  (with  God's  help)  out  of  this  hand  and  brain. 

You  know  me,  Miss  Pringle,  too  well  to  think  that  I  would 
spend  many  words  on  what  lies  ever  nearest  to  my  heart.  Do  not, 
therefore,  think  me  abrupt. 

I  know  you  well  enough  to  feel  sure  that  your  hand  will  never 
go  where  your  heart  does  not  wholly  follow;  and,  if  you  write  me 
that  you  love  your  southern  home  too  well  to  leave  it  ever,  I  will 
bear  the  disappointment  as  stoutly  as  I  can,  and  sincerely  hope 
(as  I  do  now)  that  God  may  bless  you  always ! 

Most  truly  yours, 

Donald  G.  Mitchell. 
To  Miss  Mary  F.  Pringle. 

P.S.  A  letter  addressed  to  "Care  of  P.  M.  Judson,  Esq., 
Macon,  Geo.,"  will  reach  me  there,  or  follow  me  to  N.  Orleans. 

Very  truly  D.  G.  M. 

Miss  Pringle's  reply  gave  him  grounds  for  hope.  As  soon 
as  his  Southern  wanderings  could  be  conveniently  terminated, 
he  hastened  to  Charleston.  His  pleadings  were  not  in  vain; 
and  there,  on  the  ist  of  February  1853 — the  anniversary  of 
her  birth — in  the  historic  old  King  Street  home,  he  placed 
his  ring  upon  Miss  Pringle's  finger.  Of  course,  the  first 
information  went  to  Mary  Goddard.  "You  will  be  sur 
prised  to  find  me  here,"  he  wrote  on  the  evening  of  the  ist, 

245 


THE  LIFE  OF  DONALD  G.  MITCHELL 

"and  still  more  surprised  to  hear  that  Miss  Mary  Pringle— 
than  whom  there  is  no  lovelier  person  in  the  world — wears  an 
engagement  ring  of  my  giving !  For  the  present  keep  this 
strictly  in  confidence.  My  only  doubts  and  fears  about  the 
matter  are  whether  I  am  worthy  of  her  and  can  really  make 
her  happy.  If  you  can  say  anything  that  will  encourage  me 
in  this  belief,  pray  do.  I  know  that  you  will  love  her  de 
votedly  when  you  know  her,  just  as  I  know  she  will  love  you. 
She  is  not  rich — at  least  she  brings  me  no  fortune;  yet  she 
gives  up  a  home  full  of  luxury  and  every  charm  of  life  to  go 
where  I  may  decide.  Her  father  regrets  that  my  home  will 
not  be  here,  and  does  not  favor  much  the  idea  of  my  living 
in  a  small  town  of  Connecticut.  Two  things  would  draw  me 
strongly  to  Norwich;  first  and  greatest,  your  presence  there, 
and  next  the  great  beauty  of  the  position.  Whatever  home  I 
take,  I  do  want  to  make  famous  for  its  beauties,  and,  with 
God's  leave,  I  will  make  so.  It  is  with  some  base  regrets  that 
I  give  up  forever  the  thought  of  obtaining  through  marriage 
a  property  that  I  might  spend  in  elegancies;  but  I  am  sure 
that  good  judgment,  honesty,  and  good  intent,  confirm  the 
course  I  have  chosen.  I  have  got  a  life  of  work  before  me, 
but  I  feel  able  to  do  it.  If  luxury  had  been  supplied  to  me 
without  effort,  I  fear  I  should  have  done  very  little.  Life 
is  not  very  long  to  be  lived,  after  all;  and  what  will  make  its 
end  pleasantest  must  be  the  thought  of  honest  and  hearty 
work.  For  your  sake,  too,  seeing  that  I  might  have  assisted 
you  somewhat,  I  could  have  wished  that  fate  might  have 
ordered  differently;  but  still  I  will  do  for  you  what  I  can.  In 
honest  and  sisterly  sympathy  I  am  sure  that  you  will  find  in 
this  new  Mary,  all  you  could  wish;  and  in  the  possession  of  a 
most  true  and  loving  heart,  I  feel  richer  than  very  many 
with  millions,  and  very  much  richer  than  I  deserve." 

246 


AN    EVENTFUL   TWELVEMONTH 

Before  leaving  Charleston,  he  wrote  one  more  letter  to 
Mrs.  Goddard,  under  date  of  February  5th.  "Your  last 
did  find  me  in  Charleston — a  very  contented  lingerer — albeit 
the  hotels  were  at  the  fullest,  and  my  room  execrable.  You 
will  readily  believe  that  there  must  have  been  some  outside 
influence  to  keep  down  the  worry  of  my  spirit — and  there 
was.  You  know  that  I  used  to  speak  to  you  in  terms  of 
praise  (which  you  half  smiled  at)  of  that  other  Mary  who 
lives  here;  but  all  that  praise  was  tame,  compared  to  the 
estimate  which  I  now  have  of  her  character.  I  cannot,  nor 
shall  I  attempt  to  describe  her  to  you.  I  know  that  you  will 
love  her;  and  I  know  that  I  love  her  more  than  I  believed  I 
could  ever  love  anyone.  Don't  put  this  down  for  the  ex 
travagant  flourish  of  one  who  is  ensnared  by  a  pretty  face,  or 
who  is  bewildered  by  excitement.  I  am  as  cool  now  (as  I 
write  you)  as  ever  under  the  old  porch  in  the  shadow  of  the 
trees  of  Elmgrove !  My  only  doubt  and  only  fear  is  that  I 
am  not  worthy  of  so  much  gentleness,  and  truth,  and  dignity; 
and  that  I  cannot  make  her  happy.  This  fear  almost  haunts 
me.  You  know  how  I  have  worried  you  many  a  time  by 
my  petulance,  and  seeming  selfishness;  and  you  know  that 
my  unkindness  (more  apparent  than  real)  has  once  or  twice 
brought  tears  to  your  eyes.  Now  if  I  thought  that  I  should 
so  wrong,  so  sweet  and  so  confiding  a  nature  as  I  know  is 
now  bound  to  mine,  I  should  almost  relent  even  now,  and 
wish  to  break  the  tie  which  seems  to  me  a  new  life.  Do  you 
think  that  I  can  be  trusted  ?  If  ever  I  am  living  near  you,  I 
shall  hope  and  insist  that  you  will  reproach  me  for  whatever 
seems  a  forgetfulness  of  her  pleasure  who  will  '  for  better  or 
for  worse'  tie  her  fate  to  mine." 

Regretfully  he  found  himself  once  more  in  New  York  and 
Norwich  wrestling  with  the  duties  of  every-day  life.  "My 

24? 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

work  chains  me  to-day,"  he  wrote  Miss  Pringle  (March  2d, 
1853);  "and  after  so  long  idlesse,  and  so  enthralling  thoughts 
as  have  latterly  belonged  to  me,  I  find  it  very  hard  to  give 
my  mind  to  the  commonplaces  of  an  'Easy  Chair,'  or  the 
insipidities  of  'Fudge/'  The  Fudge  Papers  ran  in  the 
Knickerbocker  Magazine  from  January  1852  to  November 
1854.  Such  faults  of  structure  and  style  as  the  work  ex 
hibits — and  the  author  himself  felt  they  were  many- 
must  be  ascribed  to  the  conditions  under  which  it  was  pro 
duced.  It  is  asking  too  much  of  any  author  to  write  a  mas 
terpiece  during  the  season  of  courtship  and  honeymoon. 

During  those  winter  and  spring  months  of  1853,  the  best 
of  Donald's  thoughts  were  occupied  with  the  future;  the 
best  of  his  energies  given  to  planning  for  it.  An  almost 
daily  correspondence  with  Miss  Pringle  helped  to  reconcile 
him  to  distance  and  absence.  It  may  be  well  to  say  a  word 
about  this  correspondence.  It  was  not  literary  like  that  of 
Elizabeth  Barrett  and  Robert  Browning.  As  might  be  ex 
pected  in  one  of  Mr.  Mitchell's  nature,  his  love-letters  were 
for  the  most  part  strongly  individual,  intended  for  the  eye  of 
but  one.  There  cannot  be  gathered  from  them  long  para 
graphs  of  literary  criticism,  or  clever  comments  upon  the 
men  and  the  events  of  the  period.  The  letters  of  both  lovers 
were  written  from  the  heart,  not  from  the  intellect;  they  are 
tenderly  and  sweetly  beautiful  with  that  kind  of  beauty 
which  fades  in  the  strong  light  of  blazing  noon.  Apart  from 
a  few  extracts,  therefore,  they  shall  remain  where  Mr. 
Mitchell  would  wish  them  to  remain — safe  from  the  eyes  of 
the  curious.  Such  extracts  as  are  given  have  been  chosen 
for  the  light  which  they  throw  upon  Mr.  Mitchell's  char 
acter;  for  the  manner  in  which  they  reveal  the  sources  of 
that  restlessness  which  harassed  him  for  years,  the  spirit 

248 


AN    EVENTFUL    TWELVEMONTH 


in  which  he  approached  marriage,  the  plans  which  were 
forming  in  his  mind,  and  those  quick  alternations  of  joy 
and  gloom  which  marked  his  life.  I  shall  arrange  them  in 
order: 

To  Mary  Frances  Pringle. 

(NEW  YORK,  March  1st  and  2d,  1853.) — The  sight  of  New  York 
extravagance  and  brilliancy  again,  in  no  way  heightens  my  desire 
to  follow  in  its  train;  but  rather  confirms  my  hope  and  desire  for 
that  even  and  tranquil  quietude  which  comes  from  a  happy  home 
where  trees  and  flowers  befriend  us. 

Ever  that  image  of  a  modest  cottage  rich  in  all  that  makes  life 
dear,  floats  before  my  vision;  and  ever,  in  the  vision,  your  face  and 
figure  float,  commending  it  fourfold  to  my  heart,  and  quickening 
my  intent  to  make  it  real. 

Your  letter  is  altogether  like  you — earnest  and  full  of  that 
warmth  of  feeling  which,  in  you,  I  love  so  much.  Not  a  poetic, 
or  a  Blanche  Amory  glow,  that  goes  out  in  the  expression;  but  one 
pure  and  steady  "like  an  anthracite  fire."  Read  the  chapter1  and 
believe  it  all  written  to  you,  and  my  heart  written  in  it,  and  over  it. 

(NEW  YORK,  March  4th,  1853.) — What  do  you  say  to  the  broker 
business?  Fancy  it  thus: 


D.  G.  Mitchell 

No.  10  Wall  Street 

Bill  Broker  and  General  Agent 

For  Negotiating  Loans,  etc. 

Terms  Moderate 
June  i,  1853. 


Or  supposing  me  keeping  by  the  poet's  calling,  can  you  imagine 

yourself  reading  some  day  or  other  a  newspaper  paragraph  run- 

1  See  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor,  69-86. 

249 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

ning  this  way:  "We  understand  with  pain  that  the  accomplished 
sentimental  writer,  Mr.  Mitchell  (better  known  as  Ik  Marvel)  is 
in  very  reduced  circumstances.  Some  few  friends  have  under 
taken  a  subscription  in  his  behalf.  A  paper  has  been  left  at  our 
office  and  we  would  invite  the  charitably  disposed  to  contribute 
something  toward  the  relief  of  his  impoverished  family."  ! ! ! 

But  no,  my  dearest  Mary,  as  God  is  good  and  watchful  over 
the  humblest  who  call  Him  King,  labor — pleasant  labor  (beguiled 
by  your  sweet  face  and  your  sunniest  of  smiles) — will  make  for  us 
a  quiet  and  a  beaming  home,  rich  in  the  shade  of  trees,  in  the  per 
fume  of  flowers,  in  the  song  of  birds,  and  in  that  grateful  presence 
of  the  loved  one,  which  shall  crown  its  charms. 

I  love  to  talk  to  you  on  such  an  evening  as  this — a  snowy,  win 
try  evening — cold,  heavy,  cheerless — such  an  evening  as  by  and 
by  your  presence  will  always  brighten — such  an  evening  as  shall 
witness  those  fire-side  joys  which  have  hung  mistily  and  distant 
upon  the  horizon  of  my  life,  always-1-until  now.  Now  they  are  so 
near  that  I  dread  lest  they  be  unreal. 

Looking  to-day  over  a  list  of  advertised  places  for  sale,  I  found 
hundreds,  at  all  distances  from  the  city,  of  all  sizes,  from  $6,000  to 
30,000.  I  grow  much  into  your  father's  opinion,  that  it  is  best  to 
take  all  things  very  quietly.  Do  tell  me  very  freely  and  fully 
anything  that  may  occur  to  you  in  connection  either  with  a  perma 
nent  home,  or  our  'whereabouts'  for  the  summer.  New  York  is, 
I  fear,  going  to  be  terribly  full  after  the  ist  of  May.  I  hear  that 
rooms  are  even  now  engaged  for  May  and  June.  Never  mind,  the 
world  is  wide;  and  if  we  find  no  comfort  here,  we  can  seek  it  in 
some  cozy  nook  of  the  'Old  Country,'  and  loiter  down  the  park 
glades  (where  Carry  loitered)1  of  green  old  England  ! 

There  is  (as  you  say)  confidence  and  hope  and  trust  and  knowl 
edge  that  love  and  faith  are  mutual;  and  with  God's  favor,  will  be 
so,  until  He  shall  part  us  ! 

1  See  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor,  185-190. 
250 


AN    EVENTFUL    TWELVEMONTH 

I  do  look  longingly  forward  to  the  day  when  in  place  of  this  soli 
tary  bachelor-room  in  a  dim  and  dreary  hotel,  you  will  lighten  my 
hearth  and  home  with  that  cheery  face,  and  give  me  such  joys  as 
have  truly  lived  only  in  "  reverie." 

This  harsh  March  forewarns  me  (not  unpleasantly)  that  you 
will  find  me  a  willing  victim  to  any  future  designs  you  may  have 
of  winter  campaigns  towards  your  own  sunniness  of  season. 

You  see  I  run  on,  talking  most  disjointedly  and  unmethodically, 
just  as  if  your  own  sweet  self  were  here,  and  as  if  my  arm  still 
clasped  you.  You  will  pardon  it  all  then,  and  believe  strongly, 
and  stronger  than  ever  before,  how  dearly  I  love  you,  and  how 
hopefully. 

(NORWICH,  CONN.,  March  I5th,  1853.) — I  keep  my  eye  upon 
all  the  places  advertised,  and  so  soon  as  the  weather  is  warmer,  shall 
make  a  running  search — not  with  a  view  to  immediate  purchase, 
but  that  I  may  have  some  data  whereby  to  regulate  our  summer 
life. 

Have  you  read  My  Novel  of  Bulwer's,  and  what  think  you  of 
the  character  of  Helen  ?  and  do  you  remember  toward  the  close 
some  such  mention  as  this:  "the  life  of  a  metropolis  is  essential  to 
the  healthful  intuition  of  a  writer,  in  the  intellectual  wants  of  the 
age."  It  may  be  true  of  passionate  and  dramatic  novel-writing; 
but  of  calmer  works,  whether  historical  or  descriptive,  I  cannot 
believe  it  to  be  true:  I  do  not  want  to  believe  it  true.  Time  was — 
not  long  since — when  I  craved  the  noise  and  bustle  of  the  city  to 
stimulate  my  energies,  and  to  drive  away  from  [me]  a  sense  of 
social  want.  But,  dear  Mary,  with  your  image  rising  on  my  future 
so  pleasantly  as  it  does,  and  blessing  as  it  does  daily,  my  vision  of 
a  home,  distractions  are  needless;  and  I  shall  hope  to  find  in  your 
smile  and  your  wish,  enough  to  wake  my  energies  and  to  gladden 
my  labor. 

The  road  to  Runnymede  is,  I  suppose,  now  flowered  with 
jessamines,  and  the  grass  green  upon  the  lawn,  and  the  sky  as  blue 
and  soft  as  when  we  strolled  under  the  moss-draped  oaks.  And 

251 


THE   LIFE    OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

the  initials  (unfinished)  upon  the  holly-tree?  Do  they  stand  yet; 
and  do  you  wish  as  truly  as  I  for  the  time  when  they  will  stand 
completed,  and  we  be  as  near  in  fact  as  we  are  now  in  thought  ? 

(NORWICH,  CONN.,  March  I7th,  1853.) — Well,  is  it  not  odd  that 
here  at  my  desk,  the  scene  of  hard  and  much  heart-less  work,  I 
should  be  dashing  off  these  little  sheets — 'love  letters' — to  one  who 
six  months  ago  I  saw  for  the  first  time  in  light  muslin  dress  prome 
nading  upon  the  clean  corridors  of  Mr.  Marvin's  United  States 
Hotel;  and  a  month  later  wearing  'snuffy  brown'  dress  and  odious 
'fright '  upon  the  mountains  of  northern  New  England  ! 

(NORWICH,  CONN.,  March  2ist,  1853.) — This  life  of  ours  is  a 
strange,  perplexed  riddle;  and  when  we  have  most  reason  to  enjoy, 
and  our  horizon  is  brightest,  Providence  tempers  the  joy  with 
thick-coming  anxieties.  It  is  a  work-day  world,  and  those  plea 
sures  are  greatest,  after  all,  which  spring  from  the  consciousness  of 
work  accomplished  and  duty  performed.  Am  I  turned  sermonizer  ? 
Don't  let  me  bring  a  shade  across  that  cheerful  face  of  yours,  I  beg. 
And  not  for  this  time  only,  do  I  beg  it,  but  always.  Do  let  that 
bright  spot  of  God's  sunshine  glow  for  me  to  the  end  !  With  that 
always  before  me,  I  shall  grow — if  not  better,  at  least  more  hopeful ! 

I  have  not  ventured  thus  far  to  arrange  anything  definitely,  hop 
ing  to  have  some  more  decided  hint  of  your  wishes,  more  especially 
with  reference  to  the  European  trip.  I  think  we  might  pass  six 
months  in  Europe  at  a  cost  of  $3,000.  This  would  involve  a  bit  of 
trenching  upon  capital,  but  not  to  such  amount  as  would  frighten 
me.  ...  It  might  well  be  that  an  ocean  trip,  and  a  re-visiting  of 
old  scenes,  would  stir  my  sluggish  brain  into  some  quicker  musings 
than  belong  to  it  now;  and  I  know  I  should  dearly  love  to  point 
out  to  you  (as  Paul  did  to  Carry)  the  scenes  familiarized  by  my 
early  and  vagabond  pilgrimages.  If,  then,  your  heart  is  aglow  to 
look  down  on  the  valleys  of  Switzerland,  and  to  listen  to  my 
rigmarole  of  the  old  events,  and  of  the  sunshine  (how  colder !) 

252 


AN    EVENTFUL    TWELVEMONTH 

which  shone  on  me  then — tell  me  so,  and  let  us  go,  and  I  will  take 
tickets  for  the  Cunarder  (as  you  prefer)  of  the  ist  June. 

(NORWICH,  CONN.,  March  28th,  1853.) — I  don't  know  about 
Mrs.  Julius  Pringle's  prognostic  of  a  New  York  life.  I  fancy  she 
must  love  that  city  better  than  either  you  or  I.  It  seems  to  me 
now  as  if  some  very  strong  necessity  would  be  required  to  draw  me 
away  from  a  country  cottage  home,  lit  up  with  your  cheerful  face. 
How  seems  it  to  you,  dear  Mary? 

When,  indeed,  you  are  cheerful  no  longer,  and  the  comparative 
isolation  shall  have  worn  the  smile  from  your  face,  then  it  shall  be 
the  city,  or  whatever  else  may  relieve  the  tedium  of  the  quiet  life; 
but  we  will  stave  that  off  a  long  way. 

I  feel  almost  as  if  I  could  fall  easily  into  my  old  trick  of  farm 
ing — but  of  this  another  time. 

You  ask  after  copyright:  Its  fate,  I  think,  is  very  uncertain — 
so  uncertain  that  I  do  not  allow  myself  to  feel  interested  at  all; 
and  even  in  the  event  of  its  passing,  I  do  not  hope  for  very  much 
benefit.  Ah,  dear  Mary,  you  have  chosen  a  sadly  poor  profession — 
Vagabonds/  as  you  say,  by  appetite  and  habit;  and  only  strong 
— in  feeling.  However,  you  know  I  boast  myself  a  farmer — a 
sort  of  first  love  the  farm  was  to  me;  and  if  worst  comes  to  worst,  I 
know  I  could  win  a  livelihood  at  old-fashioned  farm  work. 

I  enclose  ...  a  feeble  little  blossom  of  heliotrope  from  my 
cousin's  plant;  it  means — devotion  ! 

I  do  think,  Molly,  that  you  would  love  to  have  a  run  over  the 
ocean,  and  through  some  of  the  soft  glades  of  England.  I  do  think, 
too,  that  you  would  pick  up  thereabout  a  great  many  hints  which 
would  go  to  beautify  and  make  tasteful  any  future  Elmgrove. 
Therefore,  I  shall  make  my  arrangements  in  view  of  a  summer's 
absence — unless  some  such  opportunity  (Micawber-wise)  should 
turn  up  for  house  and  grounds  as  would  warrant  the  adjournment 
of  the  Europe  trip. 

253 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

You  ask  what  my  publisher  says?  And  do_yo#,  who  forbid  me 
to  consult  yourself,  hint  at  my  consulting  him?  No,  then,  he 
does  not  like  my  running  off.  He  would  like  me  to  take  a  room  in 
his  store  12  ft.  x  8,  one  desk,  one  chair,  one  stone  pitcher,  six  pens, 
and  two  reams  of  paper.  He  would  advise  me  to. keep  there  the 
rest  of  the  summer,  running  up  in  the  country  to  see  you  once  a 
week;  and  in  the  winter,  once  a  month.  Pray,  shall  I  follow  his 
advice?  If  you  do  not  hurry  your  reply,  I  shall  probably  accept 
his  propositions. 

(NORWICH,  CONN.,  April  loth,  1853.) — One  of  the  places  at 
Newburgh  has  now  upon  it  only  a  workingman's  cottage  (one  story, 
three  rooms),  and  I  quite  horrified  Mr.  Headley  by  saying  that, 
by  adding  one  room  and  bathing  conveniences,  I  should  count  it, 
under  a  canopy  of  vines,  very  inhabitable  !  Would  you  have  been 
horrified,  Molly?  He  thought  it  might  be  turned  into  a  gate- 
lodge  !  But,  please  God,  dear  Molly,  I  hope  to  be  able  always,  to 
open  with  my  own  hands,  all  the  gates  to  any  home  of  ours ! 

Do  I  frighten  you  ?  I  told  you,  I  think,  of  my  visiting  Mr. 
Downing's;  a  rare  instance  of  what  taste  can  accomplish  upon  a 
very  common-place  landscape.  And  yet  Mr.  Downing  made  the 
great  mistake  of  building  too  magnificently  for  his  means;  perhaps 
his  profession  as  architect  compelled  it;  but  the  pretentious  house 
compelled  also  a  general  and  splendid  hospitality  which,  at  his 
death,  has  involved  a  sale  of  house,  furniture,  books,  and  left  his 
widow — poor.  Hospitality  can  be  just  as  honest  and  heart-felt 
under  a  low  roof  as  a  high  one;  and  I  remember  that  I  took  the 
kindness  of  Mr.  Irving  very  closely  to  heart  when  he  showed  me 
into  a  little  chamber  scarce  twelve  feet  square,  with  one  little 
diamond-paned  window,  and  only  white  dimity  curtains,  and  the 
Melrose  ivy-leaves  fluttering  against  the  casement — just  as  closely 
to  heart  as  Gov.  Manning's  kindness  in  his  palace  of  Clarendon  ! 

As  for  my  own  employment — brain-wise — for  the  year  to  come, 
my  publisher  is  more  anxious  than  I.  To  write  a  flimsy  book 

254 


AN    EVENTFUL   TWELVEMONTH 

(though  it  might  produce  revenue),  it  is  hard  to  make  up  my  mind. 
He  (my  publisher)  doesn't  give  me  a  moment's  peace  in  his  count 
ing-room;  and  varies  his  appeals  most  amusingly — first  to  my  pride, 
then  avarice,  then  fear,  then  vanity,  etc.  "Give  me  a  book,"  he 
says,  "before  you  go,  and  I  will  warrant  you  enough  to  build  a 
house  when  you  come  back."  The  Harpers  (if  I  go  abroad)  want 
a  series  of  foreign  sketches,  for  which  they  offer  very  large  pay. 
But  of  all  this  I  think  very  much  less,  dear  Molly,  than  of  you 
and  of  your  home:  that  is  my  book  now;  and  the  whole  type-world 
is  typed  in  you. 

(Undated.) — I  enclose  a  fragment  from  one  of  Mr.  Scribner's 
letters,  showing  his  book-thirstiness.  The  first  part,  which  I  do 
not  send,  warns  me  of  shortening  sales  and  revenue,  unless  I  keep 
up  the  demand  by  some  novelty.  The  "Work-day  Sermons,"  or 
"Sermons  for  Work  Days,"  hinted  at,  is  a  book,  long  had  in  con 
templation,  of  essays  written  sermon-wise  upon  "Landscape 
Gardening,"  "Spending  of  Money,"  "Beauty,"  "Architecture," 
"Trees,"  "Travel,"  and  mayhap,  "Marriage!"  This  book,  with 
the  one  already  named  in  previous  letter,  and  the  "Fudge,"  are 
all  that  lie  in  the  way  of  direct  taking  hold  of  the  magnum  opus, 
Venetian  History. 

(NORWICH,  CONN.,  April  I2th,  1853.) — One  thing  we  will  do, 
dearest  Molly,  whether  our  home  be  in  one  place  or  another;  in 
one  state  or  other;  and  whether  we  cross  one  sheet  of  water  or 
another  sheet  of  water;  and  whether  we  stroll  in  Notre  Dame  or  in 
Calvary  Church:  we  will  look  at  life  brightly  and  broadly,  and  be 
forgiving  of  what  failings  or  shortcomings  we  find — whether  in 
places,  in  pence,  or  in  people;  we  will  not  narrow  our  thoughts  to 
one  bit  of  the  world,  or  think  that  all  is  good  in  one  place,  or  all 
bad  in  another;  and  we  will  live  hopefully  and  earnestly,  counting 
it  all  God's  world,  and  we — His  creatures,  to  battle  it  away  on  the 
fighting  field  where  He  has  put  us,  with  stout  hands  and  hearts — 
taking  what  comfort  we  can  from  the  world  and  from  each  other; 

255 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

and  living  so  as  not  greatly  to  fear  the  time  (save  for  the  separa 
tion)  which  will  change  the  scene,  and  transfer  us  to  that  Great 
Future  which  lies  the  other  side  of  graves.  Pray  pardon  my 
sermonizing. 

(NORWICH?  April  2yth  (or  28th),  1853.) — A  very  kind  letter 
from  Mr.  Irving,  of  recent  date,  speaks  in  a  way  (of  you)  that  I 
shall  not  start  your  vanity  by  telling.  He  speaks,  too,  of  your 
mother's  seeming  more  like  an  elder  sister,  than  a  mother. 

Life  is  not  very  long,  you  know,  at  the  longest,  and  the  griefs 
are  thick  upon  it.  But  it  may  be  made  large  with  large  and 
earnest  purposes;  and  it  may  be  made  happy  by  goodness  of  in 
tent  and  action. 

Molly,  let  us  look  the  sunshine  in  the  face  !  I  am  not  given  to 
that  way  of  looking;  rather  prone  am  I,  from  the  misfortunes  of  my 
boyhood,  which  broke  a  large  family  into  shattered  and  feeble 
fragments,  and  devastated  a  loved  hearth  by  death  on  death,  to 
somber  musings;  but,  Molly,  let  me  now  look  hopefully  through 
your  eyes;  and  through  your  heart  grow  back  into  that  old  fra 
grance  of  a  home  which  has  lingered  (only  lingered)  around  me 
always,  like  the  faint  perfume  which  stays  where  flowers  have 
been ! 

When,  late  in  April  a  decision  to  visit  Europe  had  been 
reached,  Donald  determined  to  seek  a  consular  post,  and  on 
his  way  to  Charleston  visited  Washington  to  make  applica 
tion  in  person.  It  was  his  good  fortune  while  there  to  meet 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  who,  as  classmate  and  warm  friend 
of  the  new  President,  Franklin  Pierce,  made  the  way  for  the 
applicant  "easy  and  flowery."1  This  new  experience  of 
Washington  life  did  not  quicken  in  him  any  political  aspira 
tions;  on  the  contrary,  it  seems  to  have  deepened  his  antip- 

1  See  Mr.  Mitchell's  reminiscences  in  American  Lands  and  Letters,  2.151-152. 

256 


AN    EVENTFUL    TWELVEMONTH 

athies,  and  to  have  turned  him  definitely  from  all  thoughts 
of  active  participation  in  public  affairs.  From  his  Washing 
ton  letters  to  Miss  Pringle,  I  have  made  a  few  extracts: 

(April  joth  and  May  ist,  1853.) — Again,  my  dearest  Molly,  I 
find  myself  in  my  little  chamber,  pen  in  hand,  very  sure  that  I 
shan't  [displease]  you  by  relieving  my  solitary  hours  by  writing 
even  such  poor  scrawl  as  my  pen  makes. 

The  truth  is,  I  have  stolen  away  to  my  room  to  avoid  a  noisy 
supper,  to  which  I  was  invited,  given  by  the  fastest  of  Young 
Americas;  to  wit,  the  editor  of  the  Democratic  Review,  the  candi 
date  for  the  Constantinople  Ministry,  the  Col.  May  of  Mexican 
memory,  and  also  (though  not  of  the  same  rabid  politics)  Mr. 
Hawthorne.  I  pity  him !  He  told  me  to-day  that  some  men 
possessed  a  kind  of  magnetic  influence  over  him  which  he  could  not 
resist,  however  it  might  lead  him.  .  .  . 

They  will  be  drinking  champagne  and  singing  songs — perhaps 
even  too  far  gone  for  that — when  I  will  be  dreaming  pleasantly  of 
a  certain  cottage  adorned  by  a  certain  presence ! 

Oh,  this  horrible  Washington — haunt  of  everything  worst; 
and  yet  with  so  much  that  is  attractive,  and  keeping  within  its 
bounds  such  capacity  for  good  and  for  evil ! 

But  I  won't  sermonize  till  to-morrow.  No,  Molly,  I  won't 
travel  Sunday,  but  shall  certainly  set  off  either  on  Monday  or  on 
Tuesday  evening.  I  know  you  wouldn't  have  me  travel  on  Sunday 
even  home-ward. 

Sunday  morning.  ...  I  have  been  wandering  about  the  city 
for  two  hours  this  morning,  listening  to  the  southern  singing  birds, 
and  waiting  for  the  church  doors  to  open;  even  now  three-quarters 
of  an  hour  remain  to  the  commencement  of  service.  I  shall  guard 
myself  with  your  Prayer  Book  against  the  Puseyite  tendencies  of 
Mr.  . 

It  is  a  sad  place,  this  Washington:  compassing  within  its  borders 
more  hard  drinking,  more  swearing,  more  vulgarity,  more  presump- 

257 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

tion,  more  impudence,  than  any  place  I  ever  fell  upon  in  the  world. 
Gen.  Gushing,  to  whom  I  was  presented  by  Mr.  Hawthorne  yes 
terday,  is  a  very  good-looking,  prompt,  gentlemanly  man;  and 
spoke  to  Mr.  Hawthorne  of  my  appointment  to  the  Mediterranean 
as  certain  if  I  urged  it. 

I  find  that  the  Consulate  at  Venice  is  worth  nothing  to  speak 
of;  that  at  Leghorn  is  worth  from  $900  to  1,500  a  year:  the  place  it 
self  is  not  agreeable,  nor  are  there  libraries  nearer  than  Pisa.  The 
Genoese  Consulate  offers  a  pleasant  city  to  reside  [in],  and  is  worth 
from  1,000  to  $1,600  a  year  (d  ce  qu'on  dit). 

My  present  determination  is  not  to  thrust  myself  among  the 
office-hungry  by  seeming  to  linger  here  for  appointment.  I  shall 
simply  convey  to  Mr.  Cushing  a  knowledge  of  my  literary  intent — 
of  my  object  in  asking  a  place — of  my  unwillingness  to  interfere 
with  any  political  preferment;  but  simply  shall  suggest  that,  as  a  lit 
erary  man,  if  he  sees  any  place  available  that  may  further  my 
designs  without  prejudice  to  any  political  friends  of  the  adminis 
tration,  to  give  me  information.  This  course  will  leave  any  possi 
ble  appointment  subject  for  south-parlor  consideration,  and  will 
not  bind  Molly  to  my  expatriation  d'avance.  .  .  . 

1  have  just  returned  from  hearing  Mr. :  sad  specimen 

of  a  clergyman  !  Yet  they  tell  me  he  is  very  much  admired.  He 
should  have  been  tragic  pantomimist  upon  the  French  stage,  and 
then  he  would  have  reached  (possibly)  mediocrity ! 

I  know  this  is  hard  talking  of  a  preacher;  but  the  pulpit  is  the 
one  place  where  affectation  is  to  me  not  only  unpardonable,  but 
absurd,  wicked,  outrageous,  and  intolerable;  and  when  I  see  a  man 
under  the  sacred  duties  of  such  a  calling,  and  with  voluntary 
assumption  of  that  close  relation  to  the  Deity,  exhibiting  the 
graces — not  of  Christ — but  of  himself,  my  contempt  lacks  words 
to  measure  it. 

I  like  modesty  in  every  station;  but  above  all  I  like  it  where  to 
be  modest  is  not  so  much  a  virtue  as  a  decency.  The  church  altar 
seems  to  me  just  that  place.  .  .  . 


AN    EVENTFUL    TWELVEMONTH 

This  is  perhaps  the  last  letter  I  shall  write  you  in  years  !  How 
strange  !  God  grant  that  we  have  need  of  few  letters;  but  that  we 
may  read  each  other's  lives  and  wishes  so  fully  and  fairly — each  in 
each — that  no  machinery  of  letters  will  be  wanted  ! 

And  now,  my  bachelor  letters  to  you  are  done,  and  my  bachelor 
life  (in  effect)  is  done,  too.  Henceforward,  our  responsibility  to 
the  world  and  the  dread  Future,  blends  in  one.  Let  us  wear  it 
hopefully,  joyously  (if  it  may  be),  and  always  trustful  of  better 
things  to  come ! 

May  2d,  1853.     only  a  word,  for  the  mail  is  near  closing. 

I  shall  leave  to-morrow  at  9  P.  M.,  whether-or-no.  I  only  stay 
out  of  courtesy  to  the  numerous  friends  I  have  met  here.  Gov. 
Marcy  says  to  me  only  an  hour  ago,  "You  are  the  only  man  I  have 
asked  to  stay  another  day  in  Washington."  Mrs.  Marcy  (though 
I  only  met  her  to-day)  expressed  an  interest  in  you,  and  a  wish  to 
see  you.  What  will  you  say  to  a  return  this  way? 

Don't  fear  my  alliance  to  politics,  or  things  political.  I  am 
more  and  more  disgusted  with  everything  of  the  sort. 

I  saw  the  President  to-day  on  a  private  interview  in  com 
pany  with  Mr.  Hawthorne.  He  is  a  very  pleasant  man — well- 
intentioned,  I  think,  and  thoroughly  earnest. 

On  the  24th  of  May  Donald's  commission  as  consul  of 
the  United  States  of  America  for  the  port  of  Venice  and 
the  Adriatic  ports  of  the  Lombardo- Venetian  kingdom  was 
issued.  One  week  later,  he  and  Miss  Pringle  were  married 
in  the  King  Street  home,  Charleston.  The  public  took  more 
than  a  passing  interest  in  the  marriage  of  the  famous  bache 
lor-dreamer,  and  the  blessings  of  thousands  followed  the  two 
young  people.  "Your  honeymoon,"  wrote  George  Bancroft 
prophetically,  "can  have  no  last  quarter."  After  a  few  days 
of  travel  and  a  visit  with  Mary  Goddard  in  Norwich,  they 
sailed  for  Liverpool  on  the  Arctic,  June  25th,  1853. 


259 


HOME  FIRES  ON  EUROPEAN  HEARTHS 

Our  little  household  machinery  works  capitally;  and  our  fourth- 
floor  parlor,  with  its  growing  accumulation  of  odd  bits  of  old  oak, 
odd  vases  and  pictures,  and  lighted  up  now  by  a  cheery  October 
flame  in  the  chimney,  is  looking  quite  home-like. — D.  G.  M.  to 
William  B.  Pringle,  from  Paris,  October  3oth,  1854. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  Donald's  chief  reason  for 
going  to  Europe  was  to  revisit  in  company  with  his  bride  the 
scenes  of  his  former  travel.  He  wanted  to  see  once  more 
the  beauties  of  the  countryside,  and  with  his  eyes  upon  them 
to  make  note  of  such  features  as  later  on  he  might  adapt  to 
home-making  of  his  own.  To  be  sure,  he  half  convinced 
himself  that  a  history  of  Venice  was  his  objective,  and  he 
certainly  hoped  that  such  a  journey  might,  as  he  said,  "stir 
his  sluggish  brain  into  some  quicker  musings";  but  the 
itinerary  followed  and  the  course  of  events  reveal  the  truth. 
He  went  up  and  down  the  avenues  of  Great  Britain  and  the 
Continent  with  sketch-book  in  hand.  No  beautiful  design 
of  gateway,  or  porch,  or  chimney,  or  gable,  or  window,  or 
fireplace  escaped  his  attention.  The  little  book  which  he 
carried  lies  now  before  me.  Its  daintily  colored  sketches 
speak  as  eloquently  as  words  of  the  hearty  devotion  that  went 
into  their  making;  and  it  is  easy  to  see  that  they  are  the 
sources  of  inspiration  upon  which  he  later  drew.  Good, 
honest  investigation  of  Venetian  history  he  indeed  made; 
but  throughout  the  months  of  travel  and  study,  the  image  of 

260 


HOME    FIRES    ON    EUROPEAN    HEARTHS 

that  home  to  which  he  had  so  long  looked  forward,  kept 
rising  before  his  fancy. 

The  Arctic  reached  Liverpool  on  the  6th  of  July.  For 
three  months  thereafter  the  young  people  travelled  leisurely, 
following  for  the  most  part  the  trails  which  Donald  knew  so 
well.  In  October  they  reached  Venice,  where  Mr.  Mitchell 
settled  down  to  the  discharge  of  the  slender  consular  busi 
ness  and  to  historical  studies.  A  considerable  portion  of  his 
correspondence  during  this  period  remains,  chiefly  letters  to 
Mary  Goddard.  I  have  made  such  extracts  as  enable  us  to 
follow  the  fortunes  of  the  travellers  during  the  months  of 
their  European  residence: 

To  Mary  Goddard. 

(GENEVA,  September  9th,  1853.) — Your  kind,  but  too  short  favor 
reached  me  here  only  a  day  or  two  ago,  being,  with  the  exception 
of  one  from  Dr.  Barker,  the  only  friendly  letter  I  have  received 
since  my  departure.  .  .  .  Mary  is  very  well,  indeed,  and  has 
made  one  or  two  of  the  high  mountain  passes  with  me  on  mule  and 
foot.  ...  I  need  not  tell  you  that  our  trip  has  been  a  pleasant 
one.  Indeed,  nothing  has  occurred  in  any  way  to  mar  it,  save  the 
rush  and  crowd  of  travel,  which  has  obliged  us  very  often  to  take 
inferior  quarters,  and  of  course  to  submit  to  imposition.  .  .  .  The 
weather  has  been  generally  fine,  but  within  a  few  days  has  kept  us 
housed. 

Our  trip  was  first  through  North  Wales,  thence  to  London; 
thence  to  Edinburgh  by  Derbyshire,  the  Lake  Counties,  etc.,  to 
Loch  Lomond,  Stirling,  York,  London  again,  the  Isle  of  Wight, 
Calais,  Brussels,  Aix  la  Chapelle,  Cologne,  Mayence,  Baden,  Basle, 
Zurich,  Lucerne,  Interlaken,  Berne,  Vevay,  Geneva.  Only  Cha- 
mouni  remains  of  Switzerland;  and  it  is  even  doubtful  if  I  do  not 
run  away  without  seeing  that,  reserving  it,  however,  for  some 
future  time. 

261 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   0.    MITCHELL 

I  have  grown  sadly  lazy  in  respect  of  writing,  so  that  even  a 
letter  drags  heavily;  but  I  hope  to  make  a  reform  when  I  am  once 
settled  quietly  in  my  quarters  at  Venice. 

The  sight  of  English  farms  has  quickened  all  my  old  tastes,  and 
I  want  when  I  go  back,  room  and  verge  enough  to  work  out  some 
thing  in  that  way. 

(VENICE,  October  22d,  1853.) — I  wrote  you,  I  can't  say  how 
many  weeks  since;  but  certainly  some  time  since  the  receipt  of 
your  last;  so  that  whereas  I  have  heard  from  you  but  a  single  time, 
this  is  at  least  my  third  writing  to  you.  This  is  doing  a  good  deal 
for  a  newly-married  man,  and  above  all  for  one  so  engrossed  and 
perplexed  as  I  have  been  since  my  arrival  here,  with  looking  out 
for  rooms,  and  servants,  and  all  the  et  ceteras  of  housekeeping;  for 
to  almost  literal  housekeeping  are  we  reduced.  First  and  fore 
most,  the  Consulate  is  worth  nothing  in  any  way;  neither  in  money, 
nor,  in  view  of  the  present  feeling  of  the  Austrian  authorities  to 
ward  America,  is  it  worth  anything  for  its  position.  Of  course, 
I  shall  only  stay  so  long  as  I  am  obliged  to  stay  to  finish  what 
reading  I  must  do  here:  this  I  hope  to  do  by  April  or  May,  when  I 
shall  go  either  to  Florence  or  to  Paris;  in  either  of  those  places  I 
can  live  much  cheaper  and  better  than  here. 

We  have  now  very  comfortable  quarters  and  good  sized  rooms, 
besides  a  little  kitchen  and  two  servant's  rooms,  which  we  hire  with 
furniture,  linen,  crockery,  etc.,  and  also  use  of  a  garden  abutting 
upon  the  Grand  Canal.  We  keep  a  gondolier  who  acts  also  as 
servant,  waiter,  and  almost  everything  else.  A  cook  we  are  now 
on  the  outlook  for,  but  are  at  present  provided  from  the  kitchen 
of  our  host. 

I  am  thoroughly  disappointed  in  the  cost  of  living  here,  and  in 
the  agreeableness  of  it,  though  perhaps  this  last  is  not  so  much  to 
be  regretted,  as  it  will  add  to  my  disposition  to  keep  at  my  books 
and  my  work.  I  feel  as  if  I  had  wasted  two  good  years  which  I 
must  repair  as  soon  and  as  well  as  I  can.  .  .  . 

262 


HOME    FIRES    ON    EUROPEAN    HEARTHS 

Mary,  as  you  may  well  suppose,  is  delighted  with  the  new 
things  she  sees;  and  is  always  the  same  as  when  you  saw  her — mak 
ing  friends  of  everybody,  and  beguiling  me,  I  daresay,  into  very 
much  more  of  idleness  than  is  either  proper  or  becoming. 

(VENICE,  November  ?  1853.) — We  are  still  here  living  very  cozily 
in  cozy  quarters,  Mary  playing  the  housewife  better  even  than  I 
could  have  fancied.  But  we  are  both  fairly  out  of  patience  with 
the  cheating  and  lying  habit  of  everybody  with  whom  we  are 
brought  in  contact;  and  were  we  not  just  now  trammelled  by  rooms 
which  we  cannot  rid  ourselves  of,  we  should  leave  instanter  for 
either  Florence  or  Paris.  I  do  assure  you  that  much  as  I  have 
seen  of  foreign  knavery,  the  Venetians  have  inspired  in  me  a  more 
thorough  contempt  than  I  could  have  believed  possible. 

We  shall  leave  here,  I  think,  in  March  or  April;  but  whether  for 
Florence  or  Paris  is  still  undecided.  I  do  not  count  on  being  home 
much  before  the  summer  of  1855.  Still,  if  possible,  shall  make  my 
return  earlier.  I  am  pushing  on  somewhat  in  Venice  (the  history), 
but  it  is  a  long  and  a  dull  task.  I  want  very  much  to  get  a  little  box 
of  my  own,  where  I  can  smoke  and  work  by  my  own  fire. 

We  are  all  anxiously  waiting  every  day's  news  here  from  the 
war-country.  There  are  sad  and  very  decided  fears  that  the 
trouble  may  spread  over  Europe.  If  so,  I  may  run  away,  even 
with  Venice  incomplete. 

The  winter  here  is  very  severe;  and  as  I  write,  heavy  snow  is 
lying  on  all  the  roofs,  and  on  the  borders  of  the  canals. 

(VENICE,  November  i8th,  1853.) — You  would  be  amused  and 
surprised  to  find  how  many  of  the  old  Norwich  luxuries  Mary  has 
revived  for  me  here;  such  as  a  true  dish  of  baked  beans,  and  most 
delicious  quince  marmalade — prepared,  this  last,  by  her  own  hands. 
Indeed,  I  did  not  know  what  a  provider  I  had  found  in  a  wife  until  I 
had  entered  upon  this  little  trial  of  housekeeping.  Without  her,  I 
believe  I  should  have  gone  crazy  here;  as  every  Italian  is  a  knave, 

263 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

there  is  no  society,  the  chimneys  smoke  (though  we  hope  that  may 
be  cured  x)>  and  the  Consulate,  instead  of  being  an  advantage,  is 
rather  the  contrary.  The  gross  fees  are  about  $150  a  year.  I  have 
already  given  notice  of  my  intention  to  resign,  and  shall  probably 
in  the  spring  go  either  to  Florence  or  to  Paris.  All  the  great  li 
braries  will  be  equally  serviceable  to  me,  and  there  is  nothing 
accessible  here  which  may  not  be  found  in  Paris  or  in  Florence. 

I  am  budging  very,  very  slowly  with  my  history,  partly  through 
the  hanging  on  of  the  last  year's  laziness,  and  partly  from  the  ex 
ample  of  lazy  habit  in  the  people  around  me. 

My  old  farming  likings  revive  more  and  more  in  this  city  of 
waters.  Read  Flagg's  book  and  let  me  know  how  you  like  it. 
I  had  before  heard  of  Motley's  endeavor,  but  I  do  not  think  he  will 
make  a  popular  book.  An  Englishman  has  also  been  engaged  here 
for  many  years  on  studies  connected  with  Venice — with  a  view  to 
ultimate  publication,  I  suppose.  It  will  be  my  endeavor,  there 
fore,  to  make  my  history  more  practical,  so  to  speak,  than  erudite. 
I  want  to  finish  it  before  returning,  so  as  to  turn  my  hand  to  some 
thing  else. 

Although  Mr.  Mitchell  was  reappointed  to  the  Venice 
consulate  on  the  28th  of  February  1854,  his  letter  of  resig 
nation  had  already  gone  forward  to  Washington  on  the  i4th. 
The  manner  in  which  the  consular  service  was  conducted  had 
grown  utterly  distasteful  to  him,  and  in  resigning  he  did  not 
hesitate  to  speak  plainly  in  regard  to  what  he  strongly  felt 
were  needed  reforms.  In  accepting  the  resignation  (March 
1 8th),  Mr.  Marcy,  the  secretary  of  state,  thanked  him  for 
"the  important  suggestions  in  reference  to  the  Consular 
system  of  the  United  States."  It  is  worth  while  to  say  that 
within  a  few  years  material  changes  in  the  system  were  made 
in  line  with  the  suggestions  put  forward  by  Mr.  Mitchell. 

1  There  is  humorous  record  of  the  "curing"  in  Bound  Together,  224-228. 

264 


HOME    FIRES    ON    EUROPEAN    HEARTHS 

In  after  years,  Mr.  Mitchell  greatly  enjoyed  making  humor 
ous  reference  to  his  consular  experiences.  "Julius  Caesar 
was  a  consul,"  he  wrote,  "and  the  first  Bonaparte;  and  so 
was  I.  ...  For  myself,  consular  recollections  are  not,  I 
regret  to  say,  pleasant.  I  do  not  write  *  Ex-United  States 
Consul'  after  my  name.  I  doubt  if  I  ever  shall.  ...  I 
have  no  objection  to  serve  my  country;  I  have  sometimes 
thought  of  enlisting  in  the  dragoons.  I  am  told  they  have 
comfortable  rations,  and  two  suits  of  clothes  in  a  year.  But 
I  pray  Heaven  that  I  may  never  again  be  deluded  into  the 
acceptance  of  a  small  consulate  on  the  Mediterranean."  1 

Upon  their  removal  to  Paris  late  in  February,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Mitchell  settled  down  to  permanent  home  life  in  a  cozy 
little  fourth-floor  apartment  at  8  Rue  du  Luxembourg, 
where  they  remained  until  mid-April  1855.  Here  they  saw 
much  of  home  friends  and  relatives.  Henry  Huntington, 
who  had  recently  established  his  bachelor  home  in  the  Rue 
de  la  Bruyere,  was  within  reach.  Mr.  Mitchell's  brother 
Louis,  and  Mrs.  Mitchell's  sister  Susan  and  Uncle  Robert 
Pringle,  brought  a  comradeship  of  kin  that  prevented  home 
sickness.  A  part  of  Donald's  first  Paris  letter  to  Mary 
Goddard  follows: 

(8  RUE  DU  LUXEMBOURG,  April  9th,  1854.) — Your  letter  of 
February  reached  us  here  only  a  few  days  ago,  having  been  for 
warded  from  Venice.  ...  On  leaving  Venice  I  had  half  a  mind  to 
establish  myself  at  Florence  until  my  history  was  done;  but  on 
hearing  bad  accounts  of  the  summer  heats,  and  finding  no  very 
enjoyable  rooms,  we  decided  to  come  on  to  Paris,  where  we  shall 
remain  certainly  until  autumn,  and  very  probably  until  a  year 
from  this  time.  We  are  pleasantly  situated,  not  far  from  the  garden 
of  the  Tuileries;  and  have  a  salle  a  manger •,  parlor,  bed-room,  work- 

1  "Account  of  a  Consulate,"  in  Seven  Stories,  75-127. 

265 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

room  for  me,  and  kitchen  with  beds  for  the  servants — cook  and 
maid.  Of  course,  we  are  at  housekeeping,  as  we  were  at  Venice. 
Expenses  are  very  much  higher,  but  opportunities  for  my  writing 
are  better  than  there. 

...  I  have  become  more  persuaded  that  I  shall  take  a  place 
where  I  can  have  land  about  me,  when  I  get  back.  Indeed,  I  am 
almost  inclined  to  think  of  farming  in  earnest,  or  of  giving  up  writ 
ing  altogether.  Still,  I  am  looking  out  for  books,  and  mean  to 
have  a  good  library  about  me  wherever  I  may  be,  already  having 
increased  my  stock  some  two  or  three  hundred  volumes. 

The  history  drags  on  very  slowly — partly  by  reason  of  my  eyes, 
which  I  harmed  by  late  reading  of  old  Italian  type  in  Venice,  and 
have  been  obliged  here  to  consult  a  physician,  and  shorten  my 
reading  very  much.  In  other  respects,  I  am  quite  well. 

On  the  5th  of  June  1854,  their  first  child,  a  daughter,  was 
born.  The  happy  father  hastened  to  inform  Mary  Goddard 
of  the  event.  "The  child  is  large,  with  brown  hair,  and  dark 
blue  eyes,"  he  wrote  on  the  following  day.  "The  nurse  says 
it  is  a  'noble  child/  Of  course  it  is  !" 

As  the  summer  of  1854  approached  its  end,  Mrs.  Mitch 
ell's  parents,  eager  for  a  sight  of  their  daughter  after  her 
long  absence,  urgently  advised  a  turning  homeward  in  the 
autumn.  A  part  of  Donald's  reply  to  the  father,  Wm.  B. 
Pringle,  sets  forth  the  reasons  which  caused  them  to  prolong 
their  stay: 

(Qctober  3oth,  1854.) — You  know  that  the  work  I  am  upon  in 
volves  a  sort  of  attention  which  is  no  way  reconcilable  with  change ; 
and  with  books  and  opportunities  about  me,  it  would  seem  exceed 
ingly  injudicious  to  fling  them  all  away  after  only  a  single  summer's 
acquaintance.  I  regret  very  much  a  necessity  which  compels 
Mary's  longer  absence  from  home;  but  a  winter  at  longest  is  not 
very  long;  the  baby  will  be  stronger  for  the  voyage;  we  shall  meet 

266 


HOME    FIRES   ON   EUROPEAN   HEARTHS 

(God  willing)  spring  warmth  on  the  Atlantic  coast;  and  at  the  latest 
shall  hope  to  reach  Charleston  by  the  first  of  May.  Mary  will 
continue  her  visit  there  as  long  as  Mrs.  P[ringle]  may  think  pru 
dent,  while  I  am  on  the  search  for  some  habitable  quarter  at  the 
North.  I  still  think  of  a  country  life  within  arm's  length  of  the 
town,  where  we  may  find  quiet,  good  air,  and  such  surroundings  of 
trees,  flowers,  and  shade  as  may  perhaps  tempt  some  of  your  roving 
family  to  pay  us  a  summer  visit. 

I  have  little  hope  of  finishing  the  historic  work  I  am  upon  while 
here;  but  hope  to  get  through  the  ugliest  part  of  the  task,  in  collec 
tion  of  notes  and  comparison  of  authorities:  if  I  complete  the  whole 
within  a  year  thereafter,  I  shall  be  quite  satisfied.  Some  lesser 
literary  ventures  which  will  work  themselves  out  in  the  interval, 
without  interrupting  my  chief  occupation,  will  serve  at  least  to 
keep  up  my  acquaintanceship  with  my  clientele. 

And  then  follows  a  paragraph  which  helps  us  to  remember 
that  the  shadows  of  the  war  in  the  Crimea  fell  athwart  the 
European  residence  of  the  Mitchells: 

All  the  outside  world  is  busy  again  with  thought  of  Sebastapol. 
The  Emperor  even  is  said  to  be  in  a  gloomy  state  of  anxiety,  and 
what  with  the  coming  winter  and  the  heavy  losses  in  the  camps,  the 
prospects  of  the  Allies  are  less  bright  than  they  have  been  any  time 
in  the  season.  Still,  however,  Paris  is  wearing  a  gay  look;  theatres 
are  full;  all  the  public  works  are  going  forward  with  wonderful 
rapidity. 

Only  one  other  letter  of  this  period  remains.  "We  are 
getting  on  here  in  a  very  domestic  way,  going  out  very  little, 
and  I  hard  at  work  upon  what  proves  very  slow  work — my 
history,"  he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Goddard  (December  i4th,  1854). 
"Where  we  shall  go  [upon  returning  to  America]  as  yet  is 
very  uncertain.  I  dread  to  think  of  the  perplexity  of  choos- 

267 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

ing,  and  the  annoyance  of  a  long  search.  Two  things  I  am 
determined  to  have — land,  and  an  easy  way  of  getting  to 
New  York.  We  are  picking  up  odds  and  ends  of  furniture, 
as  we  find  them  cheap,  and  shall  bring  over  enough  perhaps 
for  a  couple  of  rooms;  also  quite  a  budget  of  books.  ...  If 
worst  should  come  to  worst,  and  we  should  be  obliged  to 
seek  a  quiet  boarding  place  for  next  summer,  do  you  think 
there  could  any  arrangement  be  made  with  the  Rudds  ? 
Don't  speak  of  this  to  anyone.  I  hardly  know,  indeed,  why 
I  suggest  it,  all  my  plans  being  yet  so  unsettled.  In  view  of 
work  with  the  publisher,  it  may  be  necessary  to  swelter  out 
some  part  of  the  summer  with  the  New  Yorkers.  One  thing 
is  certain — I  shall  have  any  amount  of  hard  work  to  do  for 
these  two  years  to  come;  and  my  idling  (if  I  ever  have  it 
again)  must  come  afterward." 

May  1855  saw  parents  and  child  safe  in  America.  The 
European  journey  had  enlarged  and  enriched  the  minds  of 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Mitchell;  it  had  given  them  a  new  sense  of 
comradeship,  a  common  store  of  knowledge  and  of  memories, 
and  a  spirit  of  cosmopolitanism  which  they  handed  on  to 
their  children.  For  Mr.  Mitchell  it  was  not  entirely  a  time 
of  ease.  During  the  absence  abroad  he  completed  The 
Fudge  Papers  for  Knickerbocker •,  and  contributed  regularly 
to  Harper 's.  The  studies  in  Venetian  history,  entered  upon 
with  eagerness  at  the  outset,  he  had  continued  doggedly  and 
persistently  as  the  magnitude  of  the  task  became  clear  to 
him.  Long  before  he  left  Paris  he  had  come  to  a  realization 
that  he  had  made  only  a  small  beginning  upon  Venice;  that 
he  had  years  of  work  ahead  of  him  before  he  could  complete 
the  story  in  any  satisfactory  way.  Beyond  all  else,  however, 
thoughts  of  a  home  were  occupying  his  mind.  In  comparison 
with  this  vision  of  home  all  else  was  of  little  consequence  to 

268 


HOME    FIRES    ON    EUROPEAN    HEARTHS 

him.  As  Europe  receded  into  the  shadowy  distance,  and 
the  shores  of  America  once  more  came  into  view,  he  felt  that 
now,  indeed,  through  whatever  difficulties  and  perplexities, 
there  would  come  realization  of  that  dream  of  home  which 
had  floated  so  often  and  so  long  before  his  fancy;  that  now, 
in  truth,  he  was  "drifting,  like  a  sea-bound  river — home 
ward/' 


269 


THE  EDGEWOOD  YEARS 


XI 
A  HOME  AT  LAST 

It  was  in  June  18(55]  tnat>  weary  of  a  somewhat  long  and  vaga 
bond  homelessness,  during  which  I  had  tossed  some  half  a  dozen 
times  across  the  Atlantic — partly  from  health-seeking,  in  part  out 
of  pure  vagrancy,  and  partly  (me  taedet  meminisse)  upon  official 
errand — I  determined  to  seek  the  quiet  of  a  homestead. — My  Farm 
of  Edgewoody  3. 

Immediately  upon  reaching  America,  Mrs.  Mitchell  went 
to  her  South  Carolina  home  with  the  little  daughter,  and  Mr. 
Mitchell  turned  eagerly  to  home  hunting.  He  was  deter 
mined  that  wife  and  child  should  rejoin  him  under  a  roof- 
tree  of  his  own.  "There  were  tender  memories  of  old  farm 
days  in  my  mind;  and  these  were  kindled  to  a  fresh  exuber 
ance  and  lustiness  by  the  recent  hospitalities  of  a  green  Eng 
lish  home,  with  its  banks  of  laurestina,  its  broad-leaved 
rhododendrons,  and  its  careless  wealth  of  primroses/'  wrote 
Mr.  Mitchell  in  retrospect.1  "Of  course  the  decision  was 
for  the  country;  and  I  had  no  sooner  scented  the  land,  after 
the  always  dismal  sail  across  the  fog-banks  of  George's  shoal, 
than  I  drew  up  an  advertisement  for  the  morning  papers, 
running,  so  nearly  as  I  can  recall  it,  thus:  'Wanted — A  farm, 
of  not  less  than  one  hundred  acres,  and  within  three  hours  of 
the  city.  It  must  have  a  running  stream,  a  southern  or 
eastern  slope,  not  less  than  twenty  acres  in  wood,  and  a 


water  view.'1 


My  Farm  of  Edgewood,  3-4. 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

Within  a  very  few  days  he  was  busy  investigating  replies 
to  this  advertisement.  The  claims  of  Norwich  and  Fair- 
field,  Connecticut,  he  had  already  considered  with  care. 
Washington  Irving  advised  the  North  River  region.  Staten 
Island,  Tarrytown,  and  White  Plains  were  visited  in  turn. 
It  was  not,  however,  until  he  went  to  New  Haven,  Connecti 
cut,  whither  college  memories  drew  him,  that  he  found  a 
farm  which  attracted  strongly. 

"I  reached  here  late  last  evening,"  he  wrote  Mrs.  Mitchell 
from  the  Tontine  Hotel,  New  Haven,  May  jist,  1855,  "and 
have  spent  the  day  in  looking  about  among  the  neighboring 
farms.  I  entered  my  name  on  the  books  as  'Mr.  Mitchell, 
New  York';  but  some  lounger,  it  appears,  recognized  me,  and 
I  found  myself  heralded  this  morning  in  the  paper  as  'Don 
ald  Mitchell,  the  distinguished  Ik  Marvel,  &c.,  &c.'  Of 
course,  I  have  had,  therefore  to  see  some  people  I  didn't  want 
to  see;  but,  per  contra^  have  gained  a  very  friendly  call  from 
Mr.  [Colin]  Ingersoll,  Member  of  Congress  from  this  district, 
who  is  to  call  again  to-morrow  morning  to  drive  me  out  place- 
hunting."  He  then  told  of  several  farms  already  visited. 
The  following  morning,  immediately  after  his  return  to  the 
Tontine,  he  added  this  note  to  the  letter  previously  quoted: 
"I  have  just  returned  with  Mr.  I.  and  his  wife  from  visiting 
a  very  fine  farm  of  200  acres  overlooking  all  New  Haven  and 
its  valley,  with  good  old-fashioned  house,  tenant  house, 
orcharding,  etc.,  thirty  to  forty  acres  of  woodland.  Price 
asked,  $16,000.  It  is  the  best  and  cheapest  for  its  goodness 
I  have  yet  seen.  It  is  distant  two  miles  from  New  Haven, 
and  New  Haven  is,  you  know,  four  hours  from  New  York. 
I  wish  you  could  see  it !" 

On  the  afternoon  of  June  2d,  in  a  note  written  to  Mary 
Goddard  from  New  York  City  after  another  day  of  investi- 

274 


A    HOME    AT    LAST 

gation,  he  said:  "Opinion  now  inclines  to  a  200  acre  farm 
near  New  Haven,  two  miles  off,  under  West  Rock,  having  a 
magnificent  view,  tolerable  house,  good  tenant  house,  good 
land,  thousands  of  fruit,  and  fine  healthy  air,  with  a  stout 
hill  to  keep  it  warm." 

The  search  was  all  but  ended.  In  My  Farm  of  Edgewood 
Mr.  Mitchell  has  told  at  length  of  his  amusing  experiences  in 
connection  with  his  home-hunting.  He  has  told  also  of  the 
finding: 

One  after  another  the  hopes  I  had  built  .  .  .  failed  me.  June 
was  bursting  every  day  into  fuller  and  more  tempting  leafiness. 
The  stifling  corridors  of  city  hotels,  the  mouldy  smell  of  country 
taverns,  the  dependence  upon  testy  Jehus,  who  plundered  and 
piloted  me  through  all  manner  of  out-of-the-way  places,  became 
fatiguing  beyond  measure. 

And  it  was  precisely  at  this  stage  of  my  inquiry,  that  I  happened 
accidentally  to  be  passing  a  day  at  the  Tontine  Inn.  .  .  .  The 
old  drowsy  quietude  of  the  place  which  I  had  known  in  other  days, 
still  lingered  upon  the  broad  green.  .  .  .  The  College  still  seemed 
dreaming  out  its  classic  beatitudes,  and  the  staring  rectangularity 
of  its  enclosures  and  buildings  and  paths  appeared  to  me  only  a 
proper  expression  of  its  old  geometric  and  educational  tradi 
tions.  .  .  . 

A  friend  called  upon  me  shortly  after  my  arrival,  and  learning 
the  errand  upon  which  I  had  been  scouring  no  inconsiderable  tract 
of  country,  proposed  to  me  to  linger  a  day  more,  and  take  a  drive 
about  the  suburbs.  I  willingly  complied  with  his  invitation.  .  .  . 

It  seems  but  yesterday  that  I  drove  from  among  the  tasteful 
houses  of  the  town,  which  since  my  boy  time  had  crept  far  out  upon 
the  margin  of  the  plain.  It  seems  to  me  that  I  can  recall  the  note 
of  an  oriole,  that  sang  gushingly  from  the  limbs  of  an  over-reaching 
elm  as  we  passed.  I  know  I  remember  the  stately  broad  road  we 
took,  and  its  smooth,  firm  macadam.  I  have  a  fancy  that  I  com- 

275 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

pared  it  in  my  own  mind,  and  not  unfavorably,  with  the  metal  of 
a  road  which  I  had  driven  over  only  two  months  before  in  the 
environs  of  Liverpool.  I  remember  a  somewhat  stately  country 
house  that  we  passed,  whose  architecture  dissolved  a*iy  illusions  I 
might  have  been  under  in  regard  to  my  whereabouts.  I  remember 
turning  slightly,  perhaps  to  the  right,  and  threading  the  ways  of  a 
neat  little  manufacturing  village — catching  views  of  waterfalls,  of 
tall  chimneys,  of  open  pasture  grounds;  and  remember  bridges, 
and  other  bridges,  and  how  the  village  straggled  on  with  its  neat 
white  palings,  and  whiter  houses,  with  honeysuckles  at  the  doors; 
and  how  we  skirted  a  pond  where  the  pads  of  lilies  lay  all  idly  afloat; 
and  how  a  great  hulk  of  rock  loomed  up  suddenly  near  a  thousand 
feet,  with  dwarfed  cedars  and  oaks  tufting  its  crevices — tufting 
its  top,  and  how  we  drove  almost  beneath  it,  so  that  I  seemed  to  be 
in  Meyringen  again,  and  to  hear  the  dash  of  the  foaming  Reichen- 
bach;  and  how  we  ascended  again,  drifting  through  another  limb 
of  the  village,  where  the  little  churches  stood;  and  how  we  sped  on 
past  neat  white  houses — rising  gently — skirted  by  hedgerows  of 
tangled  cedars,  and  presently  stopped  before  a  grayish-white  farm 
house,  where  the  air  was  all  aflow  with  the  perfume  of  great  purple 
spikes  of  lilacs.  And  thence,  though  we  had  risen  so  little  I  had 
scarce  noticed  a  hill,  we  saw  all  the  spires  of  the  city  we  had  left, 
two  miles  away  as  a  bird  flies,  and  they  seemed  to  stand  cushioned 
on  a  broad  bower  of  leaves;  and  to  the  right  of  them,  where  they 
straggled  and  faded,  there  came  to  the  eye  a  white  burst  of  water 
which  was  an  arm  of  the  sea;  beyond  the  harbor  and  town  was  a 
purple  hazy  range  of  hills — in  the  foreground  a  little  declivity,  and 
then  a  wide  plateau  of  level  land,  green  and  lusty,  with  all  the 
wealth  of  June  sunshine.  I  had  excuse  to  be  fastidious  in  the 
matter  of  landscape,  for  within  three  months  I  had  driven  on  Rich 
mond  hill,  and  had  luxuriated  in  the  valley  scene  from  the  cote  of 
St.  Cloud.  But  neither  one  nor  the  other  forbade  my  open  and  out 
spoken  admiration  of  the  view  before  me. 

I  have  a  recollection  of  making  my  way  through  the  hedging 

276 


A    HOME    AT   LAST 

lilacs,  and  ringing  with  nervous  haste  at  the  door-bell;  and  as  I 
turned,  the  view  from  the  step  seemed  to  me  even  wider  and  more 
enchanting  than  from  the  carriage.  I  have  a  fancy  that  a  middle- 
aged  man,  with  iron-gray  whiskers,  answered  my  summons  in  his 
shirt  sleeves,  and  proposed  joining  me  directly  under  some  trees 
which  stood  a  little  way  to  the  north.  I  recollect  dimly  a  little 
country  coquetry  of  his,  about  unwillingness  to  sell,  or  to  name  a 
price;  and  yet  how  he  kindly  pointed  out  to  me  the  farmlands, 
which  lay  below  upon  the  flat,  and  the  valley  where  his  cows  were 
feeding  just  southward,  and  how  the  hills  rolled  up  grandly  west 
ward,  and  were  hemmed  in  to  the  north  by  a  heavy  belt  of  timber. 

I  think  we  are  all  hypocrites  at  a  bargain.  I  suspect  I  threw 
out  casual  objections  to  the  house,  and  the  distance,  and  the 
roughness;  and  yet  have  an  uneasy  recollection  of  thanking  my 
friend  for  having  brought  to  my  notice  the  most  charming  spot  I 
had  yet  seen,  and  one  which  met  my  wish  in  nearly  every  particular. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  ride  to  town  must  have  been  very  short, 
and  my  dinner  a  hasty  one:  I  know  I  have  a  clear  recollection  of 
wandering  over  those  hills,  and  that  plateau  of  farm-land,  afoot, 
that  very  afternoon.  I  remember  tramping  through  the  wood,  and 
testing  the  turf.  ...  I  can  recall  distinctly  the  aspect  of  house, 
and  hills,  as  they  came  into  view  on  my  second  drive  from  the 
town;  how  a  great  stretch  of  forest,  which  lay  in  common,  flanked 
the  whole,  so  that  the  farm  could  be  best  and  most  intelligently 
described  as — lying  on  the  edge  of  the  wood.  And  it  seemed  to  me, 
that  if  it  should  be  mine,  it  should  wear  the  name  of Edge- 
wood. 

It  is  the  name  it  bears  now.  I  will  not  detail  the  means  by 
which  the  coyness  of  my  iron-gray-haired  friend  was  won  over  to 
a  sale;  it  is  enough  to  tell  that  within  six  weeks  from  the  day  on 
which  I  had  first  sighted  the  view,  and  brushed  through  the  lilac 
hedge  at  the  door,  the  place,  from  having  been  the  home  of  another, 
had  become  a  home  of  mine;  and  a  new  stock  of  lares  was  blooming 
in  the  atrium. 

277 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

In  the  disposition  of  the  landscape,  and  in  the  breadth  of  the 
land,  there  was  all,  and  more  than,  I  had  desired.  There  was  an 
eastern  slope  where  the  orchard  lay,  which  took  the  first  burst  of 
the  morning,  and  the  first  warmth  of  spring;  there  was  another 
valley  slope  southward  from  the  door,  which  took  the  warmth  of 
the  morning,  and  which  keeps  the  sun  till  night.  There  was  a  wood, 
in  which  now  the  little  ones  gather  anemones  in  spring,  and  in 
autumn,  heaping  baskets  of  nuts.  There  was  a  strip  of  sea  in 
sight,  on  which  I  can  trace  the  white  sails,  as  they  come  and  go, 
without  leaving  my  library  chair;  and  each  night  I  see  the  flame  of 
a  lighthouse  kindled,  and  its  reflection  dimpled  on  the  water.  If 
the  brook  is  out  of  sight,  beyond  the  hills,  it  has  its  representative 
in  the  fountain  that  is  gurgling  and  plashing  at  my  door. 

And  it  is  in  full  sight  of  that  sea  where  even  now  the  smoky 
banner  of  a  steamer  trails  along  the  sky,  and  in  the  hearing  of  the 
dash  of  that  very  fountain,  and  with  the  fragrance  of  those  lilacs 
around  me,  that  I  close  this  initial  chapter  of  my  book,  and  lay 
down  my  pen. 

In  such  strain  could  Mr.  Mitchell  write  of  Edgewood 
eight  years  after  its  purchase.1  Nor  did  he  ever  live  to  feel 
that  his  first  impressions  were  wrong,  or  to  regret  his  choice. 
In  that  June  of  1855,  with  the  sure  instinct  of  a  homing  bird, 
he  found  the  quiet  retreat  which  was  to  be  his  for  more  than 
fifty-three  years.  His  days  of  wandering  were  at  an  end. 
Henceforward  the  story  of  his  life  is  bound  up  with  the  story 
of  the  crops,  and  flowers,  and  birds,  and  trees,  and  books  of 
Edgewood. 

1  In  My  Farm  of  Edgewood t  37-45. 


278 


XII 
OUTDOOR  WORK 

I  do  not  think  I  ever  met  with  a  man  who  loves  fields  and  flowers 
and  trees  as  I  love  them;  who  can  watch  as  I  do  their  development 
of  bud,  blossom,  and  leaf,  and  their  glorious  decay  with  all  its 
encarmined  and  purple  dyes. — D.  G.  M.  in  random  note. 

The  greatest  charm  of  a  country  life  seems  to  me  to  spring  from 
that  familiarity  with  the  land  and  its  capabilities,  which  can  come 
only  from  minute  personal  observation,  or  the  successive  develop 
ment  of  one's  own  methods  of  culture. — My  Farm  of  Edgewood,  74. 

"I  would  not  counsel  any  man  to  think  of  a  home  in  the 
country,  whose  heart  does  not  leap  when  he  sees  the  first 
grass-tips  lifting  in  the  city  court-yards,  and  the  boughs  of 
the  Forsythia  adrip  with  their  golden  censers/'  These  are 
Mr.  Mitchell's  own  words  of  wisdom  to  such  as  may  be  con 
templating  country  life.  They  are  a  clear  expression  of  that 
passion  for  country  things  which  formed  the  foundation  of 
his  character.  Long  ere  this  it  must  have  become  clear  to 
every  reader  that  by  inheritance,  temperament,  training, 
Mr.  Mitchell  was  destined  for  country  life.  It  must  have 
become  clear  that  he  was  influenced  in  his  decision  by  no 
whim,  by  no  chance  vagary.  He  had  never  forgotten  the 
attractions  of  the  Salem  farming  days.  Since  those  days  he 
had  seen  the  rural  beauties  of  Europe,  had  observed  much 
of  agricultural  method,  and  had  continued  his  readings  in 
the  literature  of  farming  and  landscape-gardening.  He  now 
wished  to  give  agriculture  a  full  and  fair  trial.  "I  may  say," 

279 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

he  wrote,  "that  I  felt  a  somewhat  enthusiastic  curiosity  to 
know,  and  to  determine  by  actual  experiment,  if  farm  lands 
were  simply  a  cost  and  an  annoyance  to  any  one  who  would 
not  wholly  forswear  books,  enter  the  mud  trenches  valor- 
ously,  and  take  the  pig  by  the  ears,  with  his  own  hands."  l 

A  passage  in  Out-of-Town  Places2  illuminates  another  side 
of  Mr.  Mitchell's  character.  It  is  the  one  in  which  he  ad 
vises  those  who  are  thoroughly  in  earnest  about  a  country 
home  to  make  it  themselves.  "Xenophon,"  he  wrote,  as  he 
slipped  easily  into  his  trick  of  classic  allusion,  "Xenophon, 
who  lived  in  a  time  when  Greeks  were  Greeks,  advised  people 
in  search  of  a  country  place  to  buy  of  a  slatternly  and  careless 
farmer,  since  in  that  event  they  might  be  sure  of  making 
their  labor  and  care  work  the  largest  results.  Cato,  on  the 
other  hand,  who  represented  a  more  effeminate  and  scheming 
race,  advised  the  purchase  of  a  country  home  from  a  good 
farmer  and  judicious  house-builder,  so  that  the  buyer  might 
be  sure  of  nice  culture  and  equipments — possibly  at  a  bar 
gain.  It  illustrates,  I  think,  rather  finely,  an  essential  differ 
ence  between  the  two  races  and  ages:  the  Greek,  earnest  to 
make  his  own  brain  tell,  and  the  Latin,  eager  to  make  as  much 
as  he  could  out  of  the  brains  of  other  people/'  And  Mr. 
Mitchell  added:  "I  must  say  that  I  like  the  Greek  view  best." 

In  this  Greek  spirit  Mr.  Mitchell  worked.  He  appre 
ciated  the  value  of  sharp  endeavor.  "We  find  our  highest 
pleasure  in  conquest  of  difficulties  "  is  a  sentiment  voiced  in 
one  of  his  rural  studies.3  He  loved  to  experience  the  joy 
that  comes  in  seeing  the  thoughts  of  the  brain  take  shape 
under  the  labor  of  the  hands.  At  no  time  was  he  a  lover  of 
dead  perfection.  "One  meets  from  time  to  time  with  a  gen- 

1  My  Farm  of  Edgewood,  8.  f  See  pp.  122-123. 

1  Out-of-Town  Places,  128. 

280 


OUTDOOR    WORK 

tleman  from  the  city,  smitten  with  a  sudden  rural  fancy, 
who  is  in  eager  search  for  a  place  'made  to  his  hand/  with  the 
walks  all  laid  down,  the  entrance-ways  established,  the  dwarf 
trees  regularly  planted,  the  conservatory  a-steam,  and  the 
crocheted  turrets  fretting  the  sky-line  of  the  suburban  villa," 
he  wrote  in  Out-of-Town  Places.^  "He  may  take  a  pride  in 
his  cheap  bargain;  he  may  regale  himself  with  the  fruits,  and 
enjoy  the  vistas  of  his  arbor;  but  he  has  none  of  that  exqui 
sitely-wrought  satisfaction  which  belongs  to  the  man  who  has 
planted  his  own  trees,  who  has  laid  down  his  own  walks, 
and  who  has  seen,  year  after  year,  successive  features  of 
beauty  in  shrub,  or  flower,  or  pathway,  mature  under  his 
ministering  hand,  and  lend  their  attractions  to  the  cumu 
lating  charms  of  his  home."  It  was  of  such  exquisitely 
wrought  satisfaction  that  he  was  in  search  when  he  purchased 
Edgewood  and  undertook  to  shape  it  to  his  purposes. 

It  should  never  be  forgotten  that  the  Master  of  Edge- 
wood  was  not  a  mere  book-farmer.  Competent  helpers,  of 
course,  he  intended  to  have  beside  him;  his  was  always  to  be 
the  directing  mind.  He  entered  upon  his  work  with  definite 
notions,  determined  to  work  with  his  own  hands,  and  like 
wise  determined  that  the  venture  should  be  self-sustaining — 
even  profitable.  He  believed  that  "agricultural  successes 
which  are  the  result  of  simple,  lavish  expenditure,  without 
reference  to  agricultural  returns,  are  but  empty  triumphs." 
He  was  endeavoring  to  work  out  a  method  of  culture  that 
would  commend  itself  to  the  average  farmer,  a  method  that 
would  make  for  the  advancement  of  agriculture;  and  to  this 
end,  he  believed  that  "no  success  in  any  method  of  culture 
is  thoroughly  sound  and  praiseworthy,  except  it  be  imitable, 
to  the  extent  of  his  means,  by  the  smallest  farmer."  2  I 

1  See  pp.  1 2 1- 1 22.  a  My  Farm  of  Edgewood,  64-65. 

28l 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

have  been  able  to  secure  a  letter  written  by  Mr.  Mitchell  to 
Mr.  James  B.  Olcott,  who  for  a  time  was  tenant-farmer  at 
Edgewood.  The  letter,  which  bears  date  of  February  29th, 
1860,  throws  light  upon  Mr.  Mitchell's  methods  and  pur 
poses  : 

I  am  not  rich  enough  [he  wrote]  to  make  a  plaything  of  the 
farm,  but  am  rea-lly  dependent  upon  its  returns  and  some  little 
which  I  do  literary-wise.  For  this  reason  I  want  it  pushed  to  its 
utmost  capacity,  and  a  man  at  the  helm  who  will  feel  an  interest, 
and  extend  its  sales  and  productions.  Of  course,  I  want  mean 
time  to  give  an  example  of  neatness,  and  order,  and  thrift,  and 
taste  .  .  .  and  I  want  the  workers  to  live  and  to  do  well.  ...  I 
want  you  to  feel  very  much  as  if  the  whole  establishment  was 
under  your  charge  (I  mean  including  my  own  garden,  etc.,  at  the 
upper  house),  so  that  whenever  you  see  something  going  wrong, 
you  may  right  it.  ...  You  may  find  me  a  little  " notional"  (as 
the  country  people  say)  in  matters  of  taste,  and  maybe  petulant 
at  times,  but  I  think  not  generally  unreasonable.  If  a  bit  of  work 
does  not  please  me,  I  sometimes  do  it  over — not  to  mortify  one 
who  has  done  it  before;  but  because  an  eye-sore  Ls  always  grievous 
to  me,  and  I  try  forthwith  to  cure  it. 

Upon  settling  at  Edgewood  it  was  Mr.  Mitchell's  first 
care  to  effect  a  readjustment,  and  to  make  the  general  fea 
tures  of  the  farm  conform  to  the  notions  he  had  in  mind. 
The  "Taking  Reins  in  Hand"  chapter  of  My  Farm  of  Edge- 
wood  summarizes  this  early  work.  Order  and  beauty  were, 
of  course,  the  first  qualities  which  he  wished  to  stamp  upon 
his  surroundings.  To  this  end,  he  laid  out  the  grounds  im 
mediately  surrounding  the  homestead,  arranged  the  pasture 
and  the  garden  lands,  and  began  the  planting  of  trees  and 
hedges.  He  and  Mrs.  Mitchell  carried  the  small  hemlock- 
trees  from  the  heights  behind  Edgewood  and  with  their  own 

282 


OUTDOOR    WORK 

hands  planted  the  hedges  which  surround  the  garden  and 
form  the  road  boundary.  The  laying  of  stone  walls  and  the 
building  of  gates  and  gateways  occupied  much  of  his  atten 
tion.  In  his  wall-laying  he  took  particular  pride.  "The 
country  wall-layers,  ordinarily,  are  indisposed  to  attempt 
such  work,"  he  wrote,  "either  doubting  their  own  capacity, 
or  considering  it  an  encroachment  upon  the  province  of  the 
mason.  The  consequence  has  been,  in  my  own  experience, 
that  of  some  half-dozen  or  more  which  stand  here  and  there 
about  the  fields  at  Edgewood,  every  one  has  been  laid  up 
with  my  own  hands;  and  I  may  aver,  with  some  pride,  that 
after  eight  or  ten  winters  of  frost,  they  still  stand  firmly  and 
compact." l  After  the  original  wooden  tenant-house  had 
accidentally  burned,  Mr.  Mitchell  planned  and  built  chiefly 
from  materials  on  the  farm  the  beautiful  little  cottage  which, 
now  remodelled,  is  the  charming  home  of  his  daughter,  Mrs. 
Susan  Mitchell  Hoppin.  The  construction  of  this  cottage 
was  one  of  Mr.  Mitchell's  first  object-lessons  in  the  use  of 
Connecticut  boulders  for  building  purposes. 

All  of  this  labor  of  beautifying  the  outdoor  aspects  of 
Edgewood  was  done  quietly  and  without  haste.  With  "the 
current  American  theory  that  if  a  thing  needs  to  be  done,  it 
should  be  done  at  once — with  rail-road  speed,  no  matter 
whether  it  regards  politics,  morals,  religion,  or  agriculture," 
Mr.  Mitchell  had  little  sympathy.  Indeed,  he  loved  to 
work  leisurely  and  lovingly.  "I  think,"  he  wrote,  "that 
those  who  entertain  the  most  keen  enjoyment  of  a  country 
homestead,  are  they  who  regard  it  always  in  the  light  of 
an  unfinished  picture — to  which,  season  by  season,  they 
add  their  little  touches,  or  their  broad,  bold  dashes  of  col 
or;  and  yet  with  a  vivid  and  exquisite  foresight  of  the 

1  Out-of-Town  Places,  93. 

283 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

future  completed  charm  beaming  through  their  disorderly 
masses  of  pigments,  like  the  slow  unfolding  of  a  summer's 
day."  l  In  the  slow,  sure  workings  of  God's  Providence  he 
had  enduring  faith.  His  piquant  article,  "On  Not  Doing  all 
at  Once,"  gives  clear  insight  into  his  methods.2  "It  is  a 
mistake,  therefore,  I  think,"  he  says  in  conclusion,  "to  aim 
at  the  completion  of  a  country  home  in  a  season,  or  in  two, 
or  some  half  a  dozen.  Its  attractiveness  lies,  or  should  lie, 
in  its  prospective  growth  of  charms."  Those  who  wish  to 
follow  the  steps  by  which  Edgewood  was  developed  into  a 
homestead  famous  throughout  the  world  for  its  quiet,  coy, 
and  natural  beauties,  should  read  My  Farm  of  Edgewood  and 
Out-of-Town  Places.  Mr.  Mitchell  himself,  it  may  be  said 
in  passing,  always  set  most  store  by  what  he  called  his  Edge- 
wood  "farm  books."  "My  Farm  of  Edgewood  "  he  wrote  in 
1896,  "is  my  best  book,  if  there's  any  best  to  them!"  A 
delightful  supplement  to  these  two  farm  books  is  a  small 
volume,  Pictures  of  Edgewood,  published  by  Mr.  Mitchell  in 
1 869.3  These  pictures  show  what  the  proprietor  by  labor  of 
hand  and  brain  had  accomplished  at  Edgewood  in  fourteen 
years.  In  general  features  Edgewood  stands  to-day  very 
much  as  Mr.  Mitchell  planned  it  during  the  first  dozen  years. 
"I  think  that  I  have  not  withheld  from  view  the  awk 
wardnesses  and  embarrassments  which  beset  a  country  life 
in  New  England — nor  overstated  its  possible  attractions," 
he  wrote  in  the  closing  chapter  of  My  Farm  of  Edgewood. 
"I  have  sought  at  any  rate  to  give  a  truthful  picture,  and  to 
suffuse  it  all — so  far  as  I  might — with  a  country  atmosphere, 
so  that  a  man  might  read,  as  if  the  trees  were  shaking  their 

1  My  Farm  of  Edgewood,  346.  2  Out-of-Town  Places,  120-128. 

8  Pictures  of  Edgewood  in  a  series  of  photographs  by  Rockwood,  and  illustrative 
text  by  the  author  of  My  Farm  of  Edgewood. 

284 


OUTDOOR    WORK 

leaves  over  his  head — the  corn  rustling  through  all  its  ranks 
within  hearing,  and  the  flowers  blooming  at  his  elbow.  Be 
this  all  as  it  may — when,  upon  this  charming  morning  of  later 
August,  I  catch  sight,  from  my  window,  of  the  distant 
water — where,  as  at  the  first,  white  sails  come  and  go;  of 
the  spires  and  belfries  of  the  near  city  rising  out  of  their 
bower  of  elms,  of  the  farm  lands  freshened  by  late  rains  into 
unwonted  greenness,  of  the  coppices  I  have  planted,  shaking 
their  silver  leaves,  and  see  the  low  fire  of  border  flowers 
flaming  round  their  skirts,  and  hear  the  water  plashing  at 
the  door  in  its  rocky  pool,  and  the  cheery  voices  of  children, 
rejoicing  in  health  and  the  country  air,  I  do  not  for  a  moment 
regret  the  first  sight  of  the  old  farm  house."  Such  words  of 
satisfaction  come  only  from  those  who  have  wrought  with 
their  own  energies  in  the  open  air,  and  upon  the  face  of 
nature. 


285 


XIII 
CIVIL  WAR  DAYS 

The  children  who  sat  for  my  pictures  are  grown;  the  boys  that 
I  watched  at  their  game  of  taw,  and  who  clapped  their  hands  glee 
fully  at  a  good  shot,  are  buttoned  into  natty  blue  frocks,  and  wear 
little  lace-bordered  bands  upon  their  shoulders,  and  over  and  over, 
as  I  read  my  morning  paper,  I  am  brought  to  a  sudden  pause,  and 
a  strange  electric  current  thrills  me,  as  I  come  upon  their  boy- 
names  printed  in  the  dead-roll  of  the  war. — Reveries  of  a  Bachelor 
(Preface  of  1863),  xiii. 

Edgewood  had  scarcely  begun  to  respond  to  Mr.  Mitch 
ell's  quickening  care  when  the  shadow  of  the  Civil  War 
fell  athwart  the  nation.  Upon  few  did  this  shadow  fall  more 
darkly  than  upon  the  Mitchells.  In  their  home  met  the 
best  traditions  of  the  North  and  the  South;  the  very  names, 
Connecticut  and  South  Carolina,  suggest  the  influences  that 
combined  at  Edgewood.  It  was  inevitable  that  the  Con 
necticut  Mitchells  would  support  the  Union;  it  was  likewise 
inevitable  that  the  South  Carolina  Pringles  would  follow  the 
leading  of  their  native  State.  In  common  with  the  people  of 
both  sections  of  the  country,  husband  and  wife  had  watched 
the  gathering  storm,  and  had  dreaded  the  day  of  its  breaking. 
They  realized  that,  in  their  home  at  least,  the  progress  of  the 
conflict  would  mean  for  both  a  supreme  testing  of  character. 

During  the  late  summer  of  1860  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Pringle, 
with  their  daughters  Susan  and  Rebecca,  were  visitors  at 
Edgewood.  As  the  weeks  passed  they  watched  the  political 
aspect  grow  more  and  more  threatening,  and  when  at  last 

286 


CIVIL    WAR    DAYS 

the  visit  ended  it  was  with  sorrow  and  fear  that  they  turned 
their  faces  toward  Charleston.  They  were,  however,  happily 
ignorant  of  what  the  future  had  in  store.  Of  the  magnitude 
of  the  threatened  conflict,  there  were  few  at  that  time  who 
had  any  adequate  notion.  When  the  Pringles  left  Edgewood 
they  took  with  them  the  Mitchells'  eldest  child,  the  little 
daughter  Hesse,  whose  birth  had  occurred  in  Paris  a  little 
more  than  six  years  previously.  It  was  upon  the  suggestion 
of  Mrs.  Mitchell,  over  whom  a  premonitory  fear  of  broken 
family  ties  seemed  to  rest,  that  the  child  accompanied  her 
grandparents.  "She  will  be  a  bond  between  us,"  remarked 
Mrs.  Mitchell  as  farewells  were  spoken. 

After  the  return  of  the  Pringles  to  Charleston  events 
moved  rapidly  until  the  outbreak  of  war  in  April  1861.  The 
beginning  of  the  struggle  found  Mr.  Mitchell  just  past  his 
thirty-ninth  birthday,  in  a  condition  of  uncertain  health, 
with  a  home  unpaid  for,  and  with  a  family  of  five  small  chil 
dren  and  another  to  be  born  within  the  year.  His  duty 
seemed  clear.  His  brother  Alfred,  unmarried  and  zealous 
for  the  Northern  cause,  immediately  hurried  from  the  Sand 
wich  Islands,  where  he  was  then  residing,  and  accepted  a  com 
mission  as  captain  in  the  Thirteenth  Connecticut  Regiment, 
serving  later  on  the  staff  of  Gen.  Henry  W.  Birge.  The  other 
brother,  Louis,  although  physically  disqualified  for  regular 
service,  was  nevertheless  active  in  all  ways  that  he  could  be. 
By  the  courtesy  of  Gov.  Buckingham,  of  Connecticut,  he 
took  passage  as  ship  companion  on  the  vessel  which  trans 
ported  the  Thirteenth  Regiment  to  New  Orleans.  He  made 
himself  a  kind  of  historian  of  Connecticut  regiments,  and 
furnished  much  exact  information  to  those  who  later  com 
piled  records.  He  always  rejoiced  in  the  fact  that  of  the  half- 
dozen  young  men  whose  habit  it  was  to  gather  in  his  bachelor 

287 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

apartments  in  Norwich  each  Sunday  evening,  and  to  whom 
he  laughingly  referred  as  his  "Sunday-school  class,"  all 
went  into  the  Union  army,  where  they  won  fame  and  promo 
tion,  two  of  them,  Messrs.  Birge  and  Harland,  achieving  the 
rank  of  general.  Alfred,  Mary  Goddard's  "little  Alf"  of 
Elmgrove  days,  was  also  in  the  service,  and  was  killed  in 
battle  in  Virginia  in  1863.  Of  Mrs.  Mitchell's  five  brothers 
who  entered  the  Confederate  army,  two  were  killed. 

During  the  four  years  of  war  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Mitchell  bore 
their  sorrows  with  quiet  dignity.  In  the  home  entire  silence 
was  maintained  with  regard  to  the  causes  and  the  merits  of 
the  conflict.  Fortunately  the  children  were  too  young  to 
comprehend,  and  in  after  years  the  mother  often  expressed 
gratitude  that  they  were  not  old  enough  to  have  opinions. 
The  position  of  Mrs.  Mitchell  was  peculiarly  trying.  As  a 
woman  belonging  to  a  prominent  South  Carolina  family,  she 
was  regarded  with  ill-concealed  suspicion  by  many  of  the 
overzealous  patriot  women  of  New  Haven,  and  it  was  a 
grief  of  which  few  knew  the  depth  that  she  was  not  permitted 
to  take  active  part  in  the  organizations  for  the  relief  of  Union 
soldiers. 

Once  the  war  had  begun,  it  was  not  possible  for  the  little 
daughter  to  return  from  Charleston.  There  remained  only 
the  comfort  of  letters.  Mrs.  Mitchell  and  her  mother  main 
tained  a  regular  correspondence — usually  writing  at  least 
once  a  week — and  their  letters  were  always  passed.  Occa 
sionally  a  censor  would  write  on  the  envelope:  "I  take  plea 
sure  in  forwarding  this  beautiful  letter."  Only  too  soon 
were  Mrs.  Mitchell's  fears  realized.  Early  in  January  1862 
a  brief  letter  from  Mrs.  Pringle  brought  to  Edgewood  the 
news  of  little  Hesse's  death.  It  told  them  that  after  a  short 
illness  the  seven-year-old  daughter  had  died  of  spinal  men- 

288 


CIVIL    WAR    DAYS 

ingitis,  December  27th,  1861,  and  had  been  buried  in  St. 
Michael's  Churchyard,  Charleston.  "I  can't  tell  how  hum 
bled  I  am  by  this  chastisement,"  wrote  the  stricken  mother 
to  her  parents.  "Write  me  as  often  as  you  can,  for  your 
letters  comfort  and  nerve  me  more  than  all  else;  and  this  blow 
makes  me  tremble  more  than  ever  for  what  might  happen 
next."  The  friends  of  the  Mitchells  knew  the  peculiar 
poignancy  of  the  grief  that  had  thus  come  upon  the  Edge- 
wood  home.  "My  dear  Mitchell,"  wrote  George  William 
Curtis,  from  Boston,  January  joth,  1862,  "I  know  there  is 
nothing  to  do  but  to  reach  out  my  hand  to  you  and  say,  God 
bless  you  and  yours  !  I  do  it  with  all  my  heart  and  soul.  .  .  . 
Why  should  you  and  your  wife,  of  all,  be  the  victims  of  these 
bitter  days  ?  Some  day,  when  it  is  right  to  do  so,  tell  her 
how  deeply  I  have  felt  for  her;  for  I  have  a  girl  and  boy,  and 
I  have  a  right  to  sympathize  with  you.  God  keep  us  all !" 
During  the  whole  of  this  trying  period  Mr.  Mitchell 
attempted  to  forget  his  anxieties  and  sorrows  in  labor,  and 
in  communion  with  Nature.  In  his  literary  work  he  main 
tained  the  same  silence  with  respect  to  the  war  as  in  his 
home.  All  the  while,  however,  he  was  following  with  keenest 
interest  the  progress  of  the  struggle  in  its  minutest  details, 
at  times  even  mapping  the  significant  campaigns.  It  is  only 
through  letters  to  his  most  intimate  friends,  and  through  a 
few  scattered  notes,  that  we  are  enabled  to  know  the  work 
ings  of  his  mind  at  this  time.  One  who  had  given  as  much 
thought  as  had  Mr.  Mitchell  to  principles  of  government 
and  of  political  economy  was  certain  to  have  strong  and 
well-founded  opinions  on  such  a  civil  struggle.  It  is  of  great 
interest  to  learn  the  point  of  view  of  a  man  who  was  a  non- 
participant  and  an  observer,  of  one  who  occupied  a  detached 
and  isolated  position.  We  should  remember  that,  although 

289 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

he  was  a  non-combatant,  he  was  a  thinking  one,  and  a  clear- 
thinking  one.  By  native  endowment  and  by  education  Mr. 
Mitchell  was  a  hater  of  war  and  a  lover  of  reason.  He  had 
watched  with  impatience  the  manner  in  which  the  war 
spirit  had  been  inflamed  by  those  more  zealous  than  wise,  and 
by  those  dishonestly  zealous,  both  North  and  South.  He 
saw  a  better  way  open,  a  way  by  which  the  antiquated  sys 
tem  of  slavery  could  be  gradually  eliminated.  He  could  not 
forget  the  manner  in  which  Great  Britain  had  dealt  with 
the  evil.  Always  this  side  of  Mr.  Mitchell's  nature  was  in 
evidence,  and  he  would  rejoice  to  have  it  emphasized,  he 
would  take  pleasure  in  being  remembered  for  it.  "I  wan 
tonly  take  the  risk  of  being  condemned  for  an  errant  conser 
vative,  when  I  express  my  belief  that  there  are  a  great  many 
good  objects  in  life  which  are  accomplished  better  by  gradual 
progression  toward  them  than  by  sudden  seizure,"  he  once 
wrote.1  During  the  days  of  which  I  am  writing,  however, 
men  of  the  Donald  G.  Mitchell  type  were  not  in  the  ascen 
dancy.  The  war-fever  was  in  the  air.  The  American  states 
were  experiencing  what  David  Mallet  once  called  "the  dis 
grace  of  human  reason,"  a  disgrace  resulting  from  the  fact 
that  "mankind  in  all  their  controversies,  whether  about  a 
notion  or  a  thing,  a  predicament  or  a  province,  have  made 
their  last  appeal  to  brute  force  and  violence."  Moreover, 
Mr.  Mitchell  knew  the  people  of  both  sections  of  the  country, 
and  had  at  no  time  a  fanatic  hatred  based  upon  ignorance. 
Many  of  his  college-mates  were  men  from  the  Far  South. 
His  long  trips  through  the  Southern  States  had  brought  him 
into  contact  with  all  phases  of  the  life  there,  and  his  close 
intimacy  with  the  people  had  enabled  him  to  understand 
their  points  of  view.  It  is  from  such  men,  rather  than  from 

1  Out-oj-Town  Places,  120-121. 
290 


CIVIL    WAR    DAYS 

those  who  are  surrounded  by  the  smoke  and  the  dust  of  con 
flict,  that  we  frequently  obtain  the  clearest  and  least  preju 
diced  judgments. 

First  of  all  it  needs  to  be  said  that  Mr.  Mitchell  recog 
nized  clearly  and  fully  the  great  unwisdom  of  any  attempt  to 
disrupt  the  Union.  "I  do  not  agree  with  the  South/'  he 
wrote  in  1861,  "because  I  regard  their  action,  secession,  if 
ever  permissible  or  warrantable  by  the  broadest  view  of 
reserved  rights  of  states,  yet  uncalled  for  by  the  danger  of 
their  position;  most  unwise  politically,  as  alienating  their  ad 
herents  at  the  North;  and  morally  wrong,  because  certain  to 
invite  immense  bloodshed  without  any  commensurate  gain 
to  themselves  in  particular,  or  humanity  in  general."  At  the 
same  time  he  resented  what  seemed  to  him  an  almost  unrea 
soning  bitterness  at  the  North — a  general  classing  of  all 
Southern  people  as  beyond  the  pale  of  civilization.  A  part 
of  his  attitude  was  the  result,  no  doubt,  of  the  unmerited 
suspicion  which  rested  upon  his  home — a  suspicion  which  he, 
in  all  likelihood,  magnified,  yet  a  suspicion  which  went  far 
to  make  him  uncomfortable  and  irritable.  His  letter  to 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  of  July  5th,  1862,  can  be  read  aright 
only  by  recalling  the  stress  of  circumstances  under  which  it 
was  written.1  Long  after  the  close  of  the  war,  Mr.  Mitchell 
held  to  his  custom  of  thinking  as  his  conscience  dictated  on 

1  The  letter,  printed  in  Julian  Hawthorne's  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  and  his  Wife, 
2.312,  was  occasioned  by  Mr.  Mitchell's  reading  of  Hawthorne's  article,  "Chiefly 
about  War  Matters,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  of  July  1862.  "A  man's  opinions  can 
take  no  catholic  or  philosophic  range  nowadays,  but  they  call  out  some  shrewish 
accusation  of  disloyalty,"  wrote  Mr.  Mitchell.  "It  is  to  me  one  of  the  most 
humiliating  things  about  our  present  national  status,  that  no  talk  can  be  tolerated 
which  is  not  narrowed  to  the  humor  of  our  tyrannic  majority.  I  can  recognize 
the  enormity  of  basing  a  new  nationality,  in  our  day,  upon  slavery;  but  why  should 
this  blind  me  to  all  other  enormities  ?"  Mr.  Mitchell  always  felt  that  the  unauthor 
ized  publication  of  this  letter  without  a  statement  of  the  circumstances  surrounding 
it,  was  unfair. 

29I 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

matters  growing  out  of  the  struggle.  "I  have  most  of  all 
chafed  under  the  presumption  that  has  infected  everybody 
hereabout  in  our  Northern  world,"  he  wrote  to  his  friend 
Huntington  (August  6th,  1866  or  '67),  "whereby  every  soul 
that  made  utterance  south  of  the  Potomac  was  consigned 
straight  to  hell,  and  every  one  north  of  the  same  line  who 
voted  the  Republican  ticket  was  consigned  to  heaven.  I 
have  had  the  effrontery  to  believe  that  Satan  would  thrust 
his  spear  (with  a  barb)  into  a  good  many  that  voted  the 
Republican]  ticket,  as  well  as  into  a  great  many  who  voted 
the  Democratic]  ticket.  Such  belief  has  not  been  permissi 
ble  in  good  society." 

In  1864  Mr.  Mitchell  wrote  an  estimate  of  Washington 
Irving  l  in  which  he  gave  what  I  consider  a  good  analysis  of 
his  own  character  and  motives.  There  can  be  little  question 
that  he  had  himself  in  mind  when  he  composed  the  follow 
ing  paragraphs: 

He  is  a  man  who  clearly  shuns  controversy,  who  does  not  like  to 
take  blows  or  to  give  blows,  and  whose  intellectual  life  and  develop 
ment  find  shape  and  color  from  this  dread  of  the  combative.  Not 
that  he  is  without  a  quiet  power  and  exercise  of  satire — not  that 
follies  which  strike  his  attention  do  not  get  a  thrust  from  his  fine 
rapier;  but  they  are  such  follies,  for  the  most  part,  as  everybody 
condemns.  By  reason  of  this  quality  in  him,  he  avoids  strongly 
controverted  points  in  history;  or,  if  his  course  lies  over  them,  he 
gives  a  fairly  adjusted  average  of  opinion;  he  is  not  in  mood  for 
trenchant  assertions  of  this  or  that  belief.  This  same  quality, 
again,  makes  him  shun  political  life.  He  has  a  horror  of  its  wordy 
wars,  its  flood  of  objurgation.  Not  that  he  is  without  opinions, 
calmly  formed,  and  firmly  held;  but  the  entertainment  of  kindred 
belief  he  does  not  make  the  measure  of  his  friendships.  His 

1  "Washington  Irving,"  Atlantic  Monthly,  June  1864. 
292 


CIVIL    WAR    DAYS 

character  counted  on  the  side  of  all  charity,  of  forbearance,  against 
harsh  judgments;  it  was  largely  and  Christianly  catholic,  as  well 
in  things  political  as  literary.  He  never  made  haste  to  condemn. 

There  is  a  rashness  in  criminating  this  retirement  from  every 
day  political  conflicts  which  is,  to  say  the  least,  very  short-sighted. 
Extreme  radicalism  spurns  the  comparative  inactivity,  and  says, 
"Lo,  a  sluggard!"  Extreme  conservatism  spurns  it,  and  says, 
"Lo,  a  coward !"  It  is  only  too  true  that  cowards  and  sluggards 
both  may  take  shelter  under  a  shield  of  indifference;  but  it  is 
equally  true  that  any  reasonably  acute  mind,  if  only  charitably 
disposed,  can  readily  distinguish  between  an  inactivity  which 
springs  from  craven  or  sluggish  propensity,  and  that  other  which 
belongs  to  constitutional  temperament,  and  which,  while  passing 
calm  and  dispassionate  judgment  upon  excesses  of  opinion  of  either 
party,  contributes  insensibly  to  moderate  the  violence  of  both. 

But  whatever  may  have  been  Mr.  Irving's  reluctance  to  ally 
himself  intimately  with  political  affairs,  and  to  assume  advocacy 
of  special  measures,  it  is  certain  that  he  never  failed  in  open- 
hearted,  outspoken  utterance  for  the  cause  of  virtue,  of  human 
liberty,  and  of  his  country. 

I  have  before  me  a  few  of  the  letters  which  passed  between 
Mr.  Mitchell  and  W.  H.  Huntington  during  the  years  of  the 
war,  and  shall  give  a  portion  of  one  of  Mr.  Mitchell's  written 
on  the  6th  of  April  1862,  about  three  months  after  news  of 
the  little  daughter's  death  had  reached  Edgewood.  The 
paralysis  of  spirit  occasioned  by  this  chastening  is  clearly 
evident  in  the  first  paragraphs,  and  it  should  be  borne  in 
mind  that  such  spiritual  gloom  was  a  part  of  the  Edgewood 
atmosphere  from  '61  to  '65.  Huntington  had  remarked 
upon  the  meagreness  of  his  friend's  literary  output  since 
1855,  and  in  reply  Mr.  Mitchell  wrote: 

True  enough,  as  you  surmise,  I  am  not  very  full  of  literary  exe 
cution;  indeed,  however  full  I  had  been,  it  is  probable  that  the 

293 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

excitement  of  the  war  would  have  stayed  it.  But  I  will  not  palm 
any  such  lame  excuse  upon  you.  You  know  well  enough  my  old 
country  passion,  and  how  green  grass,  and  trees,  and  the  studies  I 
make  of  them,  fill  my  heart  full.  You  know,  too,  how  nearly  this 
life  I  lead  here,  comes  to  the  old  ideal  I  had  long  fed  upon.  You 
know  very  well  with  how  little  heartiness  I  ever  entered  into  the 
publicities  of  city  life.  All  this  again  I  name  not  in  way  of  valid 
excuse  for  inaction,  but  simply  as  cause. 

If  by  any  exigency  I  had  been  pushed  into  the  keen  melee  of 
towns  and  kept  there,  I  should  have  spent  the  energy  and  construc- 
tiveness  which  I  have  here  spent  on  shrubberies  and  walks,  on  books 
and  imaginative  catastrophes.  So,  it  has  not  befallen.  I  lament 
for  the  sake  of  friends  who  express  disappointment  and  indignation, 
far  more  than  on  my  own  score.  I  might  have  kindled  a  great 
deal  of  abuse  which  would  have  made  me  sore,  and  some  praise 
which  would  have  hardly  made  me  better.  The  quick  love  I  had 
once  for  reputation  is,  I  am  ashamed  to  say,  almost  infinitesimal. 
One  reason  of  my  under-valuation  of  it  is,  I  think,  the  absurd  over 
praise  which  was  once  given  me.  I  really  believe  I  could  do  much 
better  things  than  I  have  done,  not  perhaps  so  buoyant  with  young, 
fresh  sentiment,  which  like  the  sight  of  Rome  comes  to  no  man 
twice;  but  things  of  sharper  edge,  and  keener  insight,  and  wider 
truth.  For  my  children's  sake  and  for  the  possible  good  they 
might  work,  I  sometimes  yearn  to  do  them — far  more  than  for  any 
lift  of  reputation. 

And  then  follows  a  confidential  utterance  of  opinion  in 
regard  to  the  war.  It  is  worth  while  to  emphasize  the  date 
of  the  letter,  April  6th,  1862: 

As  for  the  war,  I  may  talk  freely  with  you  since  we  stand  on 
nearly  even  ground — you  having  effectively  expatriated  yourself, 
and  I,  virtually  done  the  same,  by  my  retirement,  and  my  abnega 
tion  of  all  politics,  even  to  voting.  The  most  aggravating  aspect  of 
the  war  to  me  personally  is  the  split  it  goes  to  make  in  the  family 

294 


CIVIL    WAR    DAYS 

allegiance  of  my  children.  I  can't  tolerate  the  thought  of  their 
cursing  one  set  of  ancestors,  and  swearing  by  the  other.  I  shall 
try  and  teach  them  early  that  southern  people  are  not  all  negro- 
stealers,  and  the  Yankees  not  all  penny-wise  meddlers  in  other 
men's  matters.  You  may  laugh  at  my  fears  on  such  score,  but  if 
you  had  read  our  daily  local  papers  for  two  years  past,  and  those 
of  the  South  in  the  same  time,  and  known  how  far  current  talk  has 
taken  on  the  same  devilish  coloring,  you  would  understand  it. 

As  for  the  political  economy  of  the  matter,  and  every  govern 
ment  question  is  one  of  political  economy,  my  opinion  is  of  course 
with  yours  against  Southern  action,  and  against  the  madness  of 
basing  any  scheme  of  government  in  this  age  upon  an  exploded 
system.  .  .  .  Slavery  is  an  immense,  long-bolstered  evil  of 
civilization,  and  we  must  ease  it  down  into  the  limbo  of  past 
things. 

As  for  the  war,  I  see  no  near  end.  Gen.  Tyler  thinks  it  lies  in 
June,  at  furthest.  I  wish  I  thought  so.  I  believe  there  are  a  mil 
lion  able-bodied  men  (a  small  minimum)  who  had  rather  die  than 
yield;  and  I  can  see  no  present  prospect  of  shooting  them  off  by 
June.  As  for  "Unionism,"  I  fear  it  has  bated  hour  by  hour,  since 
the  war  began. 

Independently  of  the  declared  basis  of  slavery  for  the  Confeder 
ate  states,  I  think  the  sympathies  of  the  larger  part  of  the  civilized 
world,  would  rally  to  the  Southern  cause.  We  Northerners  can,  of 
course,  not  easily  forget,  or  forego,  our  pride  in  the  great  "Union"; 
but  outsiders  feel  nothing  of  this.  They  see  only  that  five  or  six 
millions  of  people,  for  alleged  wrongs  (or  fears  of  wrong)  wish  to 
dissolve  their  old  national  partnership,  and  govern  themselves.  If 
the  slave  question  were  out  of  the  way  as  I  said,  this  action,  whether 
brusque,  or  inorderly,  or  mad,  would,  if  persisted  in,  rally  the  sym 
pathies  of  those  who  believe  in  democracy.  Supposing  a  "people" 
decide  by  ballot  to  assert,  and  work  out  their  independence,  and 
secure  a  government  after  their  own  formulas,  how  small  must  the 
"people"  be  to  make  their  action  indefensible  (not  in  view  of  con- 

295 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

stitutions  or  compacts  but)  in  view  of  their  "inalienable  right"? 
Are  not  a  few  millions  of  souls  enough? 

I  must  confess  that  I  am  not  the  unmitigated  admirer  of  our 
"nationality"  that  some  men  are.  I  do  not  believe  that  we  Ameri 
cans  have  crowned  civilization,  and  wrought  out  the  ne  plus  ultra  of 
humanity,  I  believe  only,  that  we  have  made  a  bold  and  grand 
experiment,  which  has  given  larger  faith  in  men's  capacity  to  rule 
themselves,  than  ever  existed  before;  but  only  this.  And  as  this 
revolution  strikes  us,  we  stand  poised  on  the  perilous  edge  of  our 
success.  If  all  our  rulers  (voters)  loved  liberty  heartily,  and  hated 
tyranny  firmly,  and  abided  by  rules  of  honesty,  I  should  feel  sure 
of  a  grand  result;  but  I  fear  greatly  that  the  "character"  of  the 
nation  (or  of  the  bulk  of  the  men  who  compose  it)  is  below  the  level 
of  that  honorable  intent,  and  perfect  disinterestedness  which  would 
deal  firmly  and  generously  with  the  troubles  upon  us.  I  hope  I  am 
[a]  false  prophet. 

My  fear  is  that  success  will  inaugurate  a  military  dynasty  that 
shall  ignore  all  the  privileges  of  our  past  times;  and  that  want  of 
success  will  drive  us  into  cowardly  bargain  by  which  we  may  reap 
money-rewards  out  of  slave  labor,  again.  In  either  event  I  should 
lose  my  pride  in  America  as  the  country  of  free  institutions,  and 
promise  for  humanity. 

To  this  letter  Huntington  in  part  replied  from  Paris, 
August  1 8th,  1862: 

Your  letter  of  6th  April  has  been  lying  in  sight  ever  since  its 
receipt  .  .  .  and  few  of  my  transatlantic  friends  are  oftener  in 
mind  than  you,  especially  since  the  commencement  of  the  war, 
which  touches  you  more  nearly  than  many  of  them.  So  far  from 
being  capable  of  laughing  at  the  anxiety  you  express  as  to  the  "split 
it  goes  to  make  in  the  family  allegiance  of  your  children,"  I  sympa 
thize  with  you  most  sincerely  in  that  natural  solicitude.  But  I 
often  think  that  families  like  yours  will  help  to  restore  a  human  so 
cial  union  hereafter  between  the  South  and  North,  so  divided  now, 

296 


CIVIL    WAR    DAYS 

whether  their  political  separation  be  permanent  or  not.  They  will 
help  to  confirm  the  peace  which  it  has  long  seemed  to  me  it  may  be 
the  work  of  diplomatists  to  negotiate  between  C.  S.  A.  and  U.  S.  A. 
x  years  hence. 

Huntington  spoke  truly  when  he  said  that  families  such 
as  the  Mitchells  and  Pringles  would  help  to  restore  "a  human 
social  union  "  between  the  two  sections  of  the  country.  Out 
of  the  furnace  of  affliction  they  came  with  the  marks  of  suffer 
ing  upon  them,  marks  which  in  the  case  of  the  parents  re 
mained  until  the  end  of  life;  yet  they  emerged  with  chastened 
and  enlarged  spirits,  which  sought  to  bind  up  the  wounds  of 
fratricidal  strife.  Mr.  Mitchell  never  again  visited  the 
South.  He  said  that  he  had  no  desire  to  see  the  ravages 
which  war  had  wrought  on  the  once  prosperous  and  beautiful 
country.  Twice  Mrs.  Mitchell  visited  her  parents,  and  did 
what  she  could  to  solace  them  in  their  grief  and  desolation. 
Twice  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Pringle  came  North,  and  sat  once  more 
in  the  shade  of  the  Edgewood  trees.  For  them  all,  war  had 
done  its  worst  in  the  way  of  destruction  of  property  and 
physical  death;  it  had  not  destroyed  the  foundations  of 
human  affection — those  invisible  foundations  upon  which 
rest  the  abiding  things  of  the  spirit. 


297 


XIV 
LITERATURE  AND  ART 

Reformers  and  teachers  are  learning  that  their  labors  to  tell 
upon  the  minds  of  men  must  be  directed  by  that  delicate  tact 
which,  in  respect  of  logic,  is  but  another  name  for  taste.  One  book 
or  one  treatise  which  steals  its  way  into  the  mind  by  delicate  ap 
proaches,  will  stick  longer  by  a  man's  purpose,  and  give  more  color 
to  his  thought,  than  hundreds  whose  lean,  dry,  barren  periods  touch 
him  with  as  little  warmth  as  belongs  to  the  fingers  of  the  dead. 

Throughout  the  vegetable  world,  with  only  rare  exceptions, 
growth  is  assured  and  sealed  with  bloom.  So  in  matters  social  and 
moral,  progress  is  not  ended,  nor  all  that  we  bring  under  that  con 
venient  term  civilization,  fully  compacted  and  perfected,  until  set 
off  with  the  coronal  bloom  of  art. — D.  G.  M.  in  unpublished  lec 
tures. 

Of  the  outdoor  work  which  occupied  Mr.  Mitchell  until 
the  feebleness  of  old  age  rendered  it  impracticable,  the  reader 
has  already  been  told.  Such  work,  however,  was  but  a  por 
tion  of  the  full  and  rich  life  that  was  lived  at  Edge  wood.  In 
a  way  that  certainly  has  had  few  parallels  Mr.  Mitchell's 
days  were  filled  with  labors  of  body  and  mind;  hand  and 
brain  were  always  active.  He  lived  a  wholesome  life. 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne  once  called  Mr.  Mitchell's  attention 
to  the  sane  balance  of  the  Edgewood  routine.1  "Your  praise 
of  Our  Old  Home"  wrote  Mr.  Hawthorne,  "though  I  know 

1  In  the  concluding  portion  of  a  letter  dated  January  i6th,  1864,  of  which  the 
first  part  is  published  in  American  Lands  and  Letters,  2.161. 

298 


LITERATURE    AND    ART 

that  I  ought  to  set  down  a  great  part  of  it  as  a  friendly  exag 
geration,  gives  me  inexpressible  pleasure;  because  I  have 
fallen  into  a  quagmire  of  disgust  and  despondency  with 
respect  to  literary  matters.  I  am  tired  of  my  own  thoughts 
and  fancies,  and  my  own  mode  of  expressing  them — a  mis 
fortune  which  I  am  sure  will  never  befall  you,  partly  because 
you  will  never  deserve  it,  and  partly  because  you  keep  your 
self  healthful  by  grappling  with  the  wholesome  earth  so 
strenuously."  It  remains  now  to  tell  of  the  fruitful  literary 
activities  which  centred  in  the  Edgewood  home,  and  of  the 
aesthetic  studies  which  set  off  all  with  "the  coronal  bloom 
of  art." 

The  library  which  Mr.  Mitchell  had  been  gathering 
through  many  years  was  collected  for  use,  and  when  he  en 
tered  upon  the  management  of  his  farm  he  had  no  thought 
of  "forswearing  books."  Rather,  he  intended  that  the 
freshness  of  the  outdoors  should  brighten  the  library,  and 
that  the  inspiration  of  books  should  in  turn  enliven  the  labors 
of  the  field.  "The  books  practical  and  poetical  which  relate 
to  flower  and  field,  stand  wedded  on  my  shelves  and  wedded 
in  my  thought,"  he  has  told  us.1  "In  the  text  of  Xenophon 
I  see  the  ridges  piling  along  the  Elian  fields,  and  in  the  music 
of  Theocritus  I  hear  a  lark  that  hangs  hovering  over  the 
straight-laid  furrows.  An  elegy  of  Tibullus  peoples  with  lov 
ers  a  farmstead  that  Columella  describes.  The  sparrows  of 
Guarini  twitter  up  and  down  along  the  steps  of  Crescenzi's 
terraced  gardens.  Hugh  Platt  dibbles  a  wheat-lot,  and 
Spenser  spangles  it  with  dew.  Tull  drives  his  horse-hoe 
afield  where  Thomson  wakes  a  chorus  of  voices,  and  flings 
the  dappling  shadows  of  clouds.  Why  divorce  these  twin- 
workers  toward  the  profits  and  the  entertainment  of  a  rural 

1  Wet  Days  at  Edgewood,  12-13. 
299 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

life  ?  Nature  has  solemnized  the  marriage  of  the  beautiful 
with  the  practical  by  touching  some  day,  sooner  or  later, 
every  lifting  harvest  with  a  bridal  sheen  of  blossoms;  no 
clover-crop  is  perfect  without  its  bloom,  and  no  pasture  hill 
side  altogether  what  Providence  intended  it  should  be  until 
the  May  sun  has  come  and  stamped  it  over  with  its  fiery 
brand  of  dandelions." 

During  the  five  or  six  years  immediately  following  1855 
Mr.  Mitchell's  literary  output  was  not  large.  Most  of  his 
energy  was  consumed  in  the  creation  of  Edgewood,  in  the 
development  of  its  peculiarly  individual  atmosphere  and 
charm.  Within  that  time  he  had,  to  be  sure,  written  and 
delivered  many  lectures,  and  contributed  several  papers  to 
Harper  s  Magazine.  Such  literary  work,  however,  was  but 
casual  and  preliminary  to  the  really  large  amount  that  fol 
lowed.  It  was  only  after  the  beginning  of  the  Civil  War  that, 
stirred  partly  by  the  necessity  of  enlarging  his  income,  partly 
by  the  desire  to  relieve  the  anxiety  occasioned  by  the  conflict, 
he  applied  himself  vigorously  to  composition.  It  was  during 
the  war  period  and  immediately  following,  that  he  wrought 
out  his  rural  studies,  first  as  magazine  articles,  later  as  books. 
My  Farm  of  Edgewood  grew  out  of  an  article  on  "Agriculture 
as  a  Profession;  or,  Hints  About  Farming,"  which  appeared 
in  the  New  Englander  of  November  1860.  The  delightful 
series  of  papers  which  ran  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  from  April 
1863  until  September  1864  under  the  title  "Wet  Weather 
Work" — a  title  indicative  of  the  fact  that  no  days  at  Edge- 
wood  were  idle  days — came  to  publication  in  book  form  as 
Wet  Days  at  Edgewood  in  1865.  Seven  Stories  (1864),  a  vol 
ume  of  short  narratives,  half  fiction,  half  truth,  grew  out  of 
his  musings  over  the  five  little  note-books  of  European  travel. 
Out-oJ-Town  Places ,  first  issued  as  Rural  Studies  in  1867,  con- 

300 


LITERATURE    AND   ART 

sists  of  a  gathering  together  of  papers  contributed  to  The 
Horticulturist^  and  Hours  at  Home,  from  1865  to  1867. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  war  Mr.  Mitchell  turned  to  the 
fulfilment  of  a  long-cherished  design — the  production  of  a 
longer  and  more  serious  work  of  fiction  than  he  had  yet 
written.  He  had  conceived  the  notion  at  least  as  early  as 
1852.  Sketchings  of  the  plot  occur  in  his  early  note-books, 
together  with  two  prospective  titles,  the  one,  The  New  Eng 
land  Vicar,  for  "a  story  resembling  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield" ; 
the  other,  A  Passage  in  the  Life  of  Doctor  Johns,  Orthodox 
Minister  of  Ashfield,  in  Connecticut.  It  is  perhaps  unfortu 
nate  that  Dr.  Johns  was  written  for  serial  publication  in  the 
Atlantic  Monthly.  Such  method  led  to  occasional  procrasti 
nation  in  plotting  and  composition,  and  Mr.  Mitchell  always 
did  best  when  he  wrote  continuously  and  in  a  glow.  Hunt- 
ington,  who  watched  the  progress  of  the  story  with  great 
interest,  feared  that  it  would  not  be  successful,  and  depre 
cated  work  which  in  his  opinion  prevented  the  author  from 
producing  that  for  which  he  was  best  fitted.  From  New 
York  City,  on  the  9th  of  January  1866,  Huntington  wrote: 

When  and  how  are  you  to  wind  up  Dr.  Johns  ?  I  liked  the  last 
number  better  than  almost  any  other  that  I  have  read.  It  seems 
to  me  that  you  have,  in  a  sort,  cornered  yourself;  and  short  of  a 
huddled,  break-down  denouement,  you  must  close  with  higher, 
finer  effects  than  your  readers  had,  two  months  ago,  any  right  to 
expect  or  ask  from  you.  Still,  I  want  to  see  you  free  of  this  story 
telling  and  frankly  given  up  to  your  true  specialty — essaying,  with 
disguised  wisdom,  on  strictly  practical  themes. 

At  last,  in  the  Atlantic  of  June  1866,  Mr.  Mitchell  suc 
ceeded  in  bringing  the  narrative  to  an  end,  and  set  about  at 
once  to  prepare  it  for  publication  in  book  form.  "I  send 

301 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

you,"  he  wrote  to  Huntington,  September  2d,  1866,  "a  rare 
print  of  preface  to  Dr.  Johns — rare  because  Scribner  objected 
as  furnishing  newspapers  material  for  onslaught,  and  there 
fore  it  will  not  appear;  hence,  only  two  copies  were  struck." 
At  least  one  of  these  rare  copies  has  survived,  and  it  is  inter 
esting  to  read  it  now  when  all  the  heat  of  discussion  has  sub 
sided,  and  the  fears  of  harm  that  the  book  might  do  have 
passed  away.  The  proscribed  preface  ran  thus: 

The  following  book  was  first  published  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly , 
and  I  was  tempted  to  this  manner  of  work  by  the  urgence  and  lib 
erality  of  my  friend  Mr.  Fields,  the  successful  and  accomplished 
conductor  of  that  magazine.  The  title,  however,  which  I  give 
upon  the  initial  page,  Mr.  Fields  condemned  as  too  long.  I  return 
to  it  now  as  expressive  of  the  humble  pretensions  of  a  book  which 
neither  in  construction  or  in  number  or  variety  of  characters  shows 
the  usual  qualities  of  a  novel. 

Its  semi-religious  tone  has  called  down  upon  my  head  certain 
private  rebukes.  There  are  very  good  people  who  have  fancied 
that  my  aim  was  to  throw  ridicule  upon  the  priestly  office;  there 
are  others  who  have  seriously  questioned  my  orthodoxy;  and  still 
others  who  have  objected  a  too  kindly  representation  of  the 
Romish  faith. 

Surely  nothing  could  have  been  further  from  my  mind  than  to 
throw  ridicule  upon  the  character  of  an  honest  Christian  teacher, 
of  whatever  faith.  As  for  orthodoxy,  it  is  so  hard  to  say  precisely 
what  it  means  nowadays,  that  I  can  make  neither  denial  or  aver 
ment — if  the  word  bore  its  old  Greek  significance  only,  it  appears 
to  me  that  every  man  should  be  modest  in  declaring  that  he  was 
sure  of  himself.  While  I  do  not  adhere  to  the  rituals  or  ceremonials 
of  the  Romish  hierarchy,  either  by  education,  or  by  love,  and  while 
I  abhor  utterly  the  present  leash  of  its  august  head  with  the  des 
potic  traditions  of  the  past,  I  have  yet  a  tender  respect  for  a  church 
which  has  counted  so  many  Christian  veterans  in  its  ranks,  which 

302 


LITERATURE    AND   ART 

has  given  a  serene  faith  to  millions,  and  whose  charities  have  flowed 
steadily  into  the  lap  of  the  poor  from  the  beginning. 

My  chief  object  has  been  to  illustrate  the  phases  of  New  Eng 
land  village-life  twenty  to  forty  years  ago.  This  I  have  tried  to  do 
faithfully,  and  have  sought  to  bring  the  religious  manifestations 
into  higher  relief  by  introducing  a  foreign  element  in  the  person  of 
the  French  girl — Adele.  It  is  quite  possible  that  my  pictures  may 
seem  untrue  to  many  who  have  had  equal  opportunities  of  obser 
vation;  all  I  can  say  is,  that  if  they  had  not  seemed  true  to  me,  I 
should  never  have  written  them. 

I  know  that  this  apologetic  strain  cannot  be  grateful  to  a  serious 
reader,  and  that  whatever  I  may  say  here  on  my  card  of  introduc 
tion,  I  shall  finally  be  judged  by  what  is  written  further  on.  I  see 
very  much  that  should  have  been  made  better;  very  much  that  a 
finer  and  firmer  hand  would  have  dashed  out  altogether;  but  I  see 
nothing  palpably  unfair  or  untrue.  A  writer  who  cannot  give  him 
self  this  much  of  praise  should  never  write  at  all.  It  is  a  longer 
venture  than  any  with  which  I  have  yet  taxed  the  public — a  public 
that  has  heretofore  shown  me  so  kind  a  welcome  that,  from  mere 
habit,  I  am  inclined  to  count  upon  its  kindness  now;  most  of  all, 
I  have  tried  to  teach  charity  in  the  book;  and  I  close  this  little  note 
of  introduction  asking  for  charity. 

To-morrow  to  fresh  woods  and  pastures  new ! 
EDGEWOOD  FARM,  July  1866. 

In  a  letter  to  Huntington,  January  id,  1867,  the  author 
detailed  the  fate  of  the  book  upon  publication,  and  his  own 
reflections  now  that  the  work  was  completed: 

The  non-success  of  Dr.  Johns  has  confirmed  your  opinion;  yet 
it  is  not  altogether  non-success.  High  price  was  against  it,  and 
Charles  Reade's  Griffith  Gaunt  (just  then  out)  was  against  it,  this 
latter  selling  at  seventy-five  cents,  and  Dr.  Johns  at  $3.25.  Judge 
which  sold  !  Yet,  say  all  you  will  against  it,  no  book  I  have  written 

303 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

since  the  Reveries  has  called  out  so  many  return  letters  of  thanks 
and  sympathy  from  private  quarters.  I  am  not  at  all  satisfied 
with  it,  but  I  think  there  is  good  intent  in  it.  The  orthodox  papers 
have  all  opened  their  blasts  upon  it,  and  Boston  Recorder  says  it  is 
as  safe  on  a  parlor  table  as  a  bomb-shell  would  be  !  There's  a  com 
pliment — not  meant.  Shall  I  anger  you  if  I  say  I  am  casting  about 
for  the  wherewithal  to  make  a  story  that  will  be  better?  I  don't 
like  to  leave  the  field  beaten.  I  thoroughly  believe  that  if  I  had 
written  it  (without  periodic  publication)  at  a  heat,  and  by  a  third 
shorter — keeping  glow  alive,  I  should  have  made  it  a  success.  As 
it  is,  about  4,000  have  been  sold. 

On  the  6th  of  March  1894,  beneath  the  first  sketching  of 
the  plot  in  the  note-book  of  1852,  Mr.  Mitchell  wrote  that  the 
carrying  out  of  the  plot  was  never  satisfactory  to  him. 
"That  book/'  he  concludes,  "was  started  on  lines  that  should 
have  made  it  a  great  deal  better  book  than  it  is."  In  1907  he 
referred  to  it  as  a  "longish  pastoral,  half  romance  and  half 
real";  and  it  is  this  portion  of  reality  that  gives  the  book 
much  of  its  value.  Whatever  may  be  its  faults  of  construc 
tion,  these  do  not  obscure  the  historical  significance  of  the 
novel.  The  book  is  an  almost  unsparing  "diagnosis  of  a  dy 
ing  Puritanism,"  and  portrays  the  processes  and  results  of 
an  unyielding  but  mistaken  religious  educational  regime. 
Those  who  wish  to  know  the  atmosphere  of  the  Connecticut 
villages  of  Mr.  Mitchell's  boyhood,  the  perfervid  religious 
zeal  of  such  ministers  as  the  Rev.  Alfred  Mitchell  and  his 
contemporaries,  and  the  "preposterous  shapes"  which  the 
religious  instruction  of  the  times  took  in  young  minds,  should 
read  Dr.  Johns.  It  is  contemporary  evidence  of  the  first 
quality,  and  its  value  as  a  side-light  on  New  England  life  and 
customs  will  become  clearer  with  the  passing  years. 

Early  in  the  war  period  Mr.  Mitchell  began  to  give  over 

3°4 


LITERATURE    AND    ART 

thought  of  bringing  to  completion  his  study  of  Venetian 
history,  and  within  a  few  years  he  abandoned  systematic 
work  upon  it.  As  early  as  1850  he  had  prepared  a  lecture  on 
Venice,  which  in  amplified  form  he  repeated  for  a  good  many 
years.  The  subject  never  ceased  to  have  attraction  for  him, 
but  he  came  to  realize  that  one  lifetime  is  insufficient  for 
the  completion  of  all  one's  literary  projects.  A  paragraph 
from  a  letter  to  Huntington,  April  6th,  1862,  shows  how  the 
matter  was  shaping  itself  in  his  mind: 

As  for  the  history,  the  magnum  opus,  it  bides  because  of  its 
largeness.  You  know  I  always  liked  symmetry  and  completeness, 
even  in  figures  of  speech;  and  the  completeness  of  so  many  centuries 
of  history  has  taken  a  nightmare  shape  of  hugeness.  The  more  I 
have  read  and  thought  upon  it,  the  more  I  seem  only  half  through 
the  alphabet  of  the  matter.  Ten  years  in  Italy,  five  in  France, 
seem  essential  to  measure  the  fullness  of  it.  I  wish  my  name  had 
never  been  connected  with  a  history  of  Venice.  In  that  event  I 
might  bring  out  a  rapid,  graphic  esquisse  of  the  salient  periods  of 
the  Venetian  history,  which  I  think  would  carry  the  color,  and 
show  the  drift  of  that  weird  national  tide  which  ebbed  and  flowed 
about  the  sunken  city. 

During  the  sixties  Mr.  Mitchell's  writings  on  agricultural 
and  rural  subjects  attracted  such  wide-spread  and  favorable 
notice  that  when  Messrs.  Pettengill  and  Bates  founded  what 
it  was  their  purpose  to  make  the  best  farm-journal  in  Amer 
ica,  he  was  asked  to  assume  the  editorship.  The  choice  was 
heartily  approved  throughout  the  country.  "I  have  read 
all  thy  writings  as  they  appeared,"  wrote  John  G.  Whittier 
to  the  new  editor,  November  nth,  1868,  "and  always  with 
interest  and  sympathy.  I  know  of  no  one  who  is  more 
worthy  of  the  honorable  and  responsible  position  of  editor  of 

305 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

a  rural  and  family  paper  of  a  high  order,  than  thyself." 
The  confidence  of  the  public  was  not  misplaced.  Mr. 
Mitchell  immediately  stamped  his  personality  upon  the  new 
enterprise.  His  was  the  choice  of  name,  Hearth  and  Home, 
his  was  the  design  for  the  heading — the  ivy-covered  entrance 
to  the  English  farm  cottage1  at  Edgewood,  with  Mrs.  Mitchell 
and  two  of  the  children  sitting  on  the  steps;  his  was  the  choice 
of  quotation  from  Shakespeare,  as  motto  for  the  magazine — 

All  superfluous  branches 
We  lop  away,  that  bearing  boughs  may  live. 

From  the  first  issue,  dated  December  26th,  1868,  until 
that  of  September  24th,  1870,  when  the  magazine  passed  into 
other  hands,  Mr.  Mitchell  was  the  life  of  Hearth  and  Home. 
He  secured  for  it  contributions  from  the  leading  literary  and 
scientific  men  of  the  time,  kept  the  illustrated  portion  up  to 
the  highest  standard,  and  put  his  best  effort  into  his  own 
editorial  writing.  A  portion  of  his  initial  editorial  reveals  the 
manner  in  which  he  approached  his  task,  and  the  temper 
which  marked  the  magazine  while  under  his  direction: 

[WJhile  we  shall  take  all  needful  measures  to  give  to  the  farmer 
whatever  scientific  or  practical  information  he  may  require,  we 
shall  also  seek,  by  the  medium  of  this  journal,  to  extend  a  refining 
influence  over  his  home  and  fireside,  and  to  make  him  a  better  and 
larger  and  cheerier  man,  while  we  make  him  a  better  and  wiser 
farmer.  To  this  end  we  shall  hope  to  kindle  and  increase  his  love 
for  flowers  and  fruits,  for  neatness  and  order,  for  good  reading, 
and  for  all  the  comforts  of  home.  .  .  .  We  shall  teach  unflinch 
ingly  that  lack  of  neatness  and  order  about  a  country  home  can 
never  be  compensated  for  by  any  isolated  beauty  of  tree  or  garden, 

1  This  picture  of  the  cottage  entrance  appears  on  the  title-pages  of  the  volumes 
forming  the  Edgewood  edition  of  Mr.  Mitchell's  works. 

306 


LITERATURE    AND    ART 

and  furthermore  shall  preach  and  teach  that  no  essential  beauty  of 
a  farmer's  or  a  laborer's  home  is  at  war  with  the  economies  of  his 
daily  life.  .  .  .  [W]e  shall  also  urge  upon  him  an  exercise  of  that 
broader  zeal  for  improvement  which  will  look  to  the  interests  and 
growth  of  his  neighborhood.  We  have  no  faith  in  the  breadth 
of  that  man's  rural  taste  who  is  satisfied  when  all  is  to  his  liking 
within  the  compass  of  his  own  circuit  of  wall.  He  owes  other  duty 
to  his  roadside,  and  to  his  neighbors,  and  to  the  village  or  town 
where  he  is  resident.  He  should  rally  to  the  support  of  every  de 
sirable  public  improvement  which  is  set  on  foot,  and  endeavor  to 
promote  that  combined  effort  without  which  no  public  improve 
ments  are  possible.  .  .  .  [W]e  shall  plead  for  the  establishment 
of  public  parks,  counting  them  a  most  wise  and  healthy  adjunct  to 
every  considerable  city,  where  the  work-woman  may  take  her 
babes,  and  where  youth  of  every  degree  may  learn  to  love  the 
beauty  of  tree  and  lake  and  lawn,  and  bless  God  for  the  oppor 
tunity  to  enjoy.  .  .  .  Finally,  and  by  way  of  summing  up  of  this, 
our  salutation,  we  hope  to  win  over  our  sluggish  farm  friends 
everywhere  to  a  wiser  economy,  to  a  larger  thrift,  to  a  better  prac 
tice,  and  to  show  them  the  way  of  it.  We  hope  to  win  country 
friends,  of  whatever  pursuit,  to  a  larger  and  livelier  love  of  hearth 
and  home,  and  to  incite  them  to  efforts  to  make  their  hearths 
cheerful  and  their  homes  beautiful,  believing  that  in  so  doing,  we 
shall  promote  that  calmness  of  mind  and  cheerfulness  of  temper 
and  charity  of  purpose  which  will  make  them  better  citizens. 

Never  once  during  his  editorship  did  Mr.  Mitchell  allow 
the  magazine  to  deviate  from  the  high  ideal  which  he  had 
thus  set  up  for  it.  It  is  a  delight  to-day  to  read  the  first 
ninety-two  numbers — the  Mitchell  numbers — of  Hearth  and 
Home.  They  combine  that  practical  spirit  and  that  literary 
quality  which  only  such  a  man  as  Donald  G.  Mitchell  could 
bring  together  in  the  pages  of  a  farm  magazine.  The  stand 
ard  of  such  magazines  was  greatly  elevated  by  the  example 

307 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

of  Hearth  and  Home.  Unfortunately,  the  founders  had  pro 
jected  the  enterprise  on  too  large  a  scale.  Mr.  Mitchell,  as 
editor-in-chief,  had  no  connection  with  the  business  manage 
ment  of  the  magazine.  He  withdrew  in  September  1870 
when  the  proprietors  found  it  necessary  to  dispose  of  their 
interests  to  Orange  Judd  &  Co.,  and  Mr.  David  M.  Judd 
assumed  editorial  supervision.  There  was  general  regret 
when  the  change  of  editorship  became  known.  In  chroni 
cling  the  change  one  newspaper1  declared:  "But  as  for  us— 
and  thousands  of  others,  we  believe — we  shall  always  miss 
in  that  journal  the  exquisite  touch  of  the  man  Ik  Marvel, 
who  presided  at  its  birth,  gave  it  its  name,  and  largely  aided 
in  pushing  it  to  popularity  with  a  rapidity  almost  unprece 
dented  in  the  history  of  American  journalism." 

After  his  withdrawal  from  the  staff  of  Hearth  and  Home, 
Mr.  Mitchell's  literary  work  was  confined  chiefly  to  magazine 
writing  and  to  lecturing.  The  part  which  came  to  complet- 
est  fulfilment  was  that  which  appeared  under  the  general 
title  English  Lands ,  Letters,  and  Kings,  with  the  two  kindred 
volumes,  American  Lands  and  Letters.  These  volumes  were 
the  outgrowth  of  lectures  which  he  began  preparing  as  early 
as  1 88 1.  He  was  encouraged  in  their  preparation  by  Mary 
Goddard's  daughter,  Mrs.  Julia  C.  G.  Piatt,  mistress  of  a 
school  for  girls  in  Utica,  New  York.  In  a  letter  to  Mrs. 
Piatt  of  March  2jd,  1881,  he  wrote:  "I  have  prepared 
six  .  .  .  lectures  of  forty-five  minutes  length  on  topics  sug 
gested  by  our  conversation.  They  are  nominally  on  English 
literature  and  history;  but  they  take  in  topography  also,  and 
are  intended  to  make  young  people  eager  about  English 
waysides,  whether  they  travel  in  fact ',  or  only  travel  in  his- 

1 1  have  been  unable  to  identify  the  paper  from  which  this  clipping  was  made. 
The  clipping  is  dated  1871. 

308 


LITERATURE   AND   ART 

tory,  and  through  English  poems.  They  are  not  of  a  sort  to 
satisfy  a  critic,  or  a  professor  of  history;  but  they  have  been 
very  well  received.  .  .  .  The  six  lectures  named  only  come 
down  from  early  Saxon  times  to  the  days  of  Elizabeth — of 
course  dealing  with  some  authors  not  very  familiarly  known; 
but  with  none,  I  think,  about  whom  there  is  no  need  to 
know." 

For  a  good  many  years  he  continued  to  extend  the  scope 
of  these  lectures,  which  he  read  before  many  audiences  within 
easy  travelling  distance  of  Edgewood.  In  the  autumn  of 
1884  he  lectured  for  one  term  on  English  literature  before 
the  young  men  of  Yale  College.  The  young  women  of  Wells 
College  likewise  had  the  pleasure  of  listening  to  a  series  of 
similar  lectures.  It  was  at  Wells  that  Mr.  Mitchell  made 
the  acquaintance  of  Miss  Frances  Folsom,  an  acquaintance 
which  he  commemorated  in  1895  by  dedicating  to  her — who 
meantime,  as  the  wife  of  Grover  Cleveland,  had  become 
Mistress  of  the  White  House — the  third  volume  of  English 
Lands,  Letters,  and  Kings. 

I  find  a  note  in  which  Mr.  Mitchell  speaks  of  the  manner 
in  which  he  prepared  his  lectures.  "I  read,  and  re-read,  and 
consider,  and  observe,"  he  remarks,  "trying  to  saturate  my 
mind  with  all  the  leading  facts  of  the  time.  I  try  very  hard 
by  reading  and  note-taking — not  merely  history,  but  fiction, 
poetry,  paintings  (if  there  are  any) — to  translate  myself  to 
the  atmosphere  of  the  [period];  and  with  that  mood  upon  me, 
go  at  my  task.  I  do  not  feel  bound  in  doing  this  to  give  one 
great  name  just  so  many  pages,  and  such  another  so  many 
more;  not  at  all.  I  take  them  as  they  come  bubbling  to  the 
surface  of  that  flood  of  memories  of  those  times  I  have  tried 
to  set  on  the  flow;  and  describe  so  many  and  such  as  will  best 
give  satisfaction,  and  vivid  sense  of  the  current  and  of  the 

309 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

characters."  He  was  always  very  modest  in  speaking  of  his 
books  on  English  and  American  literature,  feeling,  as  he 
usually  felt  in  regard  to  all  his  books,  that  they  should  have 
been  a  great  deal  better  than  they  are.  In  preparing  these 
volumes  on  literature  it  needs  to  be  said  that  Mr.  Mitchell 
knew  exactly  what  he  was  attempting  to  do,  and  with  Dr. 
Samuel  Johnson  might  have  said  he  "knew  very  well  how 
to  do  it."  He  was  not  attempting  to  push  forward  the  limits 
of  knowledge,  nor  was  he  "grubbing  in  the  rubbish  heaps  of 
antiquity"  for  chance  bits  of  overlooked  fact.  He  himself 
found  the  vast  field  of  English  literature  a  "realm  of  gold," 
and  in  wandering  there  obtained  refreshment  for  his  soul.  It 
was  to  share  with  others  this  refreshment,  it  was  to  lure 
others — and  especially  young  people — into  the  enchanted 
land,  that  he  wrote.  "Remember,"  he  exclaims  in  the  sec 
ond  volume  of  English  Lands,  Letters,  and  Kings,  "and  let 
me  say  it  once  for  all — that  my  aim  is  not  so  much  to  give 
definite  instruction  as  to  put  the  reader  into  such  ways  and 
starts  of  thought  as  shall  make  him  eager  to  instruct  him 
self."  It  was  immensely  gratifying  to  Mr.  Mitchell  to  have 
generous  evidence  of  the  fact  that  these  volumes,  and  the 
lectures  from  which  they  grew,  did  just  what  he  wished  them 
to  do.  A  whole  generation  of  young  Americans  followed  him 
into  the  goodly  kingdom  of  literature  along  these  paths  of 
his  making;  and  thousands  of  his  own  generation  followed 
the  trails  with  keenest  pleasure,  seeing  through  the  magic 
light  which  the  author  shed  upon  them  "the  green  of  the 
lands,  the  gold  of  the  letters,  and  the  purple  of  the  kings."  * 
No  other  discourses  on  English  and  American  letters  fill 
just  the  place  of  these  books.  The  author  had  learned  ex- 

1 1  have  quoted  from  a  letter  in  which  his  Yale  classmate,  Prof.  Joseph  Emer 
son,  of  Beloit  College,  thanked  Mr.  Mitchell  for  a  copy  of  English  Lands. 

310 


LITERATURE    AND   ART 

actly  what  he  could  best  do,  and  he  attempted  nothing  else. 
"He  does  not  aim  to  be  recondite  and  full,"  wrote  one  re 
viewer.1  "But  for  a  gathering  together  of  raw  material  and 
putting  it  into  the  furnace  of  an  active,  transfusing  mind, 
casting  out  the  dross,  and  bringing  out  the  nuggets  of  pure 
gold,  we  have  nothing  like  it  in  our  literature."  Another2 
commented  upon  "the  author's  gift  for  distilling  the  very 
quintessence  of  biography."  When,  in  addition  to  these 
gifts,  we  recognize  that  further  and  greater  one  by  virtue  of 
which  everything  is  seen  under  a  magic  light 

Gilding  pale  streams  with  heavenly  alchemy, 

we  shall  understand  in  some  degree  the  wide  circulation,  the 
secret  of  the  charm,  and  the  inspiring  quality  of  this  series  of 
books  with  which  Mr.  Mitchell  formally  closed  his  almost 
sixty  years  of  authorship.3 

It  was  a  magnificent  tale  of  work  in  the  realm  of  letters 
that  he  had  thus  accomplished,  a  work  with  which  many  men, 
though  they  had  done  nothing  else,  would  have  been  satisfied. 
It  should  again  be  emphasized,  however,  that  his  writings 
represent  only  a  portion  of  Mr.  Mitchell's  achievement.  All 
the  while  he  had  been  pushing  forward  his  studies  in  the 
aesthetics  of  rural  life.  After  the  purchase  of  Edgewood  he 
grew  very  naturally  into  landscape-gardening,  an  art  which 
he  cultivated  for  many  years.  For  a  time  (1867-1868),  he 
formed  a  partnership  in  landscape-gardening  and  rural  archi 
tecture  with  Mr.  William  H.  Grant,  former  superintending 
engineer  of  Central  Park,  New  York  City.  Upon  assuming 
the  editorship  of  Hearth  and  Home  Mr.  Mitchell  severed  his 

1  In  the  Baltimore  Sun,  October  1897. 

2  In  the  Nation,  December  1897. 

8  With  the  second  volume  of  American  Lands  and  Letters,  in  1899. 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

connection  with  Mr.  Grant,  and  as  time  and  opportunity 
permitted,  carried  on  the  work  alone.  He  was  never  a 
noisy  advertiser.  "I  am  sure  of  my  capacity  to  lay  out 
grounds  well"  he  wrote  Huntington,  January  2d,  1867, 
"but  I  haven't  the  faculty  of  noisy  reclamation  which  in 
these  days  goes  before  success."  Notwithstanding  his  quiet 
method  of  procedure,  his  services  were  frequently  sought. 
Among  colleges,  Princeton  and  Lafayette  secured  his  advice 
on  the  laying  out  and  planting  of  grounds.  The  city  of 
Allegheny,  Pennsylvania,  adopted  with  few  changes  Mr. 
Mitchell's  designs  for  parks.  In  1876  he  furnished  the  de 
sign  for  the  Connecticut  Building  at  the  Centennial  Exposi 
tion,  Philadelphia,  a  State  building  generally  accounted  one 
of  the  best  at  the  exposition.  In  1882  he  made  an  elaborate 
report  to  the  commissioners  of  the  city  of  New  Haven  on  the 
layout  of  East  Rock  Park,  of  which  most  of  the  provisions 
were  adopted.  He  gave  much  thought  to  a  complete  park 
system  for  New  Haven,  and  drew  detailed  plans  which, 
chiefly  because  of  the  expense  involved,  were  not  adopted. 
In  addition  to  this  public  work,  he  gave  a  touch  of  beauty  to 
many  private  estates.  His  appointment  as  an  additional 
commissioner  of  the  United  States  to  the  Paris  Universal 
Exposition  in  1878  came  as  a  recognition  of  the  work  he  had 
accomplished  in  these  fields.  In  1867  his  name  was  pre 
sented  as  that  of  the  best  possible  man  in  the  United  States 
for  the  commissionership  of  agriculture;  but  the  fact  that 
the  commissioner  of  education  was  chosen  that  year  from 
Connecticut  seemingly  made  Mr.  Mitchell's  appointment 
impossible. 

Meantime  he  had  been  devoting  himself  to  a  study  of 
painters  and  painting,  and  indulging  his  love  of  color  by  mak 
ing  water-color  drawings  for  his  own  amusement.  His 

312 


LITERATURE    AND    ART 

European  travel,  in  particular  his  residence  in  Italy,  had 
stimulated  all  his  artistic  sensibilities.  He  never  had  special 
instruction  in  art — he  was  entirely  self-taught;  but  he  did 
have  confidence  in  his  knowledge  of  the  principles  which 
underlie  the  art  of  the  painter,  and  felt  that  he  knew  how  to 
evaluate  good  painting.  His  artistic  sense  was  fitly  recog 
nized  in  New  Haven  by  his  appointment  at  the  founding  of 
the  Yale  Art  School  in  1865  as  one  of  the  four  members  of 
the  advisory  council.  He  frequently  lectured  before  the 
school,  one  of  his  lectures,  "Titian  and  his  Times,"  appearing 
in  Bound  Together.1 

I  cannot  forbear  quoting  the  apt  words2  of  Mr.  Arthur 
Reed  Kimball.  "Indeed,"  wrote  Mr.  Kimball,  "it  would  be 
hard  for  even  a  casual  reader  to  imagine  Mr.  Mitchell  as 
other  than  an  artist,  whatever  his  form  of  expression.  It  is 
its  artistic  feeling  which  gives  character  to  his  work  in  litera 
ture.  His  distinguishing  note  is  grace,  charm,  felicity  of 
phrase.  It  is  his  artistic  quality,  the  perfection  with  which 
the  lightest  thought  is  caught  and  held,  and  the  slightest 
turn  made,  that  has  appealed  to  readers  of  to-day  as  it  ap 
pealed  at  the  first." 

Nor  should  we  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  all  these  activi 
ties  were  spontaneous  outgrowths  of  the  man's  character. 
He  loved  literature,  he  loved  nature,  he  loved  to  impose  his 
mind  upon  broad  sweeps  of  landscape,  he  loved  art  in  its 
every  phase;  and  always  behind  the  art  he  sought  to  under 
stand  the  personality  of  the  artist.  Loving  these  things  as 
he  did,  he  desired  that  others  should  love  them  also.  Yet 
he  never  attempted  to  commend  the  things  he  loved  by  ob 
trusive  methods;  his  approach  was  always  coy — a  shy  steal- 

1  See  pp.  19-60. 

8  See  "The  Master  of  Edgewood,"  Scribner's  Magazine,  February  1900. 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

ing  into  the  good  graces  of  the  public.  The  style  in  which  he 
presented  whatever  subject  he  had  in  hand  was  in  many 
instances  the  lure  which  attracted.  People  found  them 
selves  submitting  to  his  quiet  charm.  And  when  once  they 
had  paused  to  listen,  they  usually  remained  to  become  dis 
ciples. 

In  conclusion  I  need  only  say  that  in  1910  Mr.  Mitchell's 
friends  and  neighbors — those  who  knew  his  work  and  the 
tenor  of  his  life — took  steps  to  perpetuate  his  memory  most 
fittingly  by  organizing  the  Donald  G.  Mitchell  Memorial 
Library.  The  thought  of  such  memorial  would  have  been 
a  source  of  happiness  to  him.  Year  after  year  this  library 
will  grow  in  size  and  influence;  year  after  year  it  will  be  a 
never-failing  spring  from  which  will  flow  living  waters.  And 
so  long  as  its  treasured  wealth  and  its  outward  form  inspire 
and  uplift  men,  it  will  remain  a  worthy  memorial  of  Mr. 
Mitchell's  achievements  in  literature  and  in  art. 


314 


XV 

THE  GOSPEL  OF  BEAUTY 

And  while  we  are  astonishing  the  world  with  our  power,  our 
wealth,  our  bigness,  is  it  not  worth  while  to  adorn  them  all  with 
somewhat  of  that  elegance  which  refines  the  man — somewhat  in 
our  schools,  in  our  arts,  in  our  landscape,  in  our  letters,  in  our 
homes,  in  ourselves,  which  shall  stand  in  evidence  that  money  and 
power  were  not  all  to  us,  but  only  weapons  with  which  to  conquer 
some  higher  place? — D.  G.  M.  in  unpublished  lecture. 

I  have  elsewhere  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  Mr. 
Mitchell  the  culture  and  refinement  of  a  long  line  of  ancestry 
flowered.  A  wide  diversity  of  gifts  was  his  by  inheritance, 
and  by  virtue  of  this  inheritance  and  his  own  application  he 
gained  distinction  in  business,  in  aesthetics,  in  literature.  I 
wish  now  to  emphasize  the  further  fact  that  his  achieve 
ments  were  not  fragmentary  and  scattered,  but  rather  re 
lated  portions  of  a  consistent  whole.  Careful  study  of  his 
life  reveals  clearly  a  definite  unity  through  all  the  diversity, 
and  enables  us  to  see  that  in  whatever  work  he  engaged,  he 
was  guided  by  a  sense  of  taste  which  sprang  from  some  deep- 
rooted  perception  of  beauty. 

Of  the  different  theories  underlying  the  philosophy  of 
beauty,  Mr.  Mitchell  had  a  good  knowledge.  Of  mere 
theory,  however,  he  was,  I  am  convinced,  always  rather  im 
patient.  There  may  have  been  times  when  with  Plato  he 
could  ask  for  a  description  or  definition  of  beauty  in  general; 
yet  for  the  most  part  he  turned  from  abstract  discussions  to 
things  beautiful  in  themselves.  He  most  certainly  believed 


THE   LIFE   OF   DONALD   G.   MITCHELL 

that  mere  definitions,  or  what  sometimes  pass  for  such, 
rarely  help  in  the  actual  recognition  of  beauty  in  particular. 
From  all  such  definitions  he  turned  with  a  sense  of  relief  to 
the  contemplation  of  color,  landscape,  poem,  picture,  and 
character,  and  saw  in  each  the  beauty  which  his  soul  recog 
nized.  With  respect  to  the  beauty  of  any  particular  thing, 
he  would  doubtless  have  used  the  words  of  the  old  sailor  who, 
when  asked  how  he  told  a  good  sailing-vessel,  replied:  "By 
a  blow  of  the  eye,  sir."  It  is  enough  to  say  that,  as  in  the 
case  of  John  Milton,  there  had  been  instilled  into  him  "a 
vehement  love  of  the  beautiful,"  and  that  it  was  his  habit 
"day  and  night  to  seek  for  this  idea  of  the  beautiful,  as  for  a 
certain  image  of  supreme  beauty,  through  all  the  forms  and 
faces  of  things,  and  to  follow  it,"  as  it  led  him  on  by  "some 
sure  traces"  which  he  seemed  to  recognize.  And  it  was  char 
acteristic  of  him  that  he  wished  to  share  all  that  his  search 
revealed  to  him.  Although  he  was  in  himself  shy  and  re 
tiring — manifesting  many  of  the  traits  of  a  recluse — he  had 
an  eminently  social  genius.  He  never  forgot  the  admonition 
which  he  voiced  in  his  Yale  valedictory—  "live  for  your  fel 
low  men."  In  a  very  significant  sense  the  work  of  his  life 
was  to  spread  the  gospel  of  beauty. 

In  the  early  fifties,  when  he  was  beginning  his  career  as  a 
public  speaker,  he  wrote  a  lecture  entitled  "The  Uses  of 
Beauty,"  which  he  frequently  read  in  many  parts  of  the 
country.  It  was  a  plea  for  beauty  in  all  the  departments  of 
life,  an  urging  upon  the  public  of  "the  profit  and  necessity  of 
blending  taste,  or  the  sentiment  of  beauty,  with  the  practical 
aims  of  life,  and  with  whatever  perfects  civilization."  In 
that  sentence,  it  seems  to  me,  he  summarized  what  was  to  be 
one  of  the  most  compelling  motives  of  his  life,  and  indicated 
one  of  the  results  to  which  the  influence  of  his  life  most 

316 


THE    GOSPEL   OF    BEAUTY 

powerfully  contributed.  It  was  his  conviction  that  beauty 
should  permeate  every  detail  of  life  from  the  simplest  acts 
of  domestic  service  to  the  most  conspicuous  acts  in  the  life 
of  a  nation.  "The  truth  is/'  he  one  time  wrote  in  speaking 
of  American  life,  "the  truth  is,  beauty  with  us,  and  its  per 
ception,  is  too  much  reckoned  a  thing  apart  from  the  aims 
and  appliances  of  every-day  life."  I  shall  later  show  what 
effect  Mr.  Mitchell's  conviction  and  practice  had  upon  his 
own  home  life. 

He  saw  and  emphasized  the  urgent  need  of  instilling  this 
sentiment  of  beauty  into  school-children  and  thus  of  reaching 
the  life  of  the  nation  at  its  source.  He  pointed  out  the  wis 
dom  of  endeavoring  at  the  earliest  possible  moment  to 
quicken  the  senses  and  perceptions  of  American  youth.  It 
should  not  be  forgotten  that  he  was  among  the  pioneers  who 
sought  to  bring  about  better  conditions  in  our  educational 
system. 

Is  it  not  possible  [he  asked]  to  give  the  school-boy  some  more 
correct  notion  of  elegance  or  harmony  than  he  is  apt  to  derive  from 
the  shapeless  mass  of  timber  and  clapboards  in  which  he  finds  the 
rudiments  of  his  education?  Is  the  desk  at  which  he  studies, 
whittled  all  over  into  vulgar  fractions,  a  good  model  for  any 
cabinet-making  genius  that  may  lie  in  him?  If  he  studies  incon 
tinently  such  wretched  typography  as  Webster  s  Primary  Speller^ 
upon  what,  in  the  name  of  reason,  can  he  found  any  notion  of  ele 
gance?  And  when  he  comes  himself  to  be  the  father,  or  curator, 
of  a  stock  of  boys,  will  he  not  in  all  likelihood,  repeat  the  old  design, 
school-house,  desk,  primer,  and  all? 

Suppose,  however,  that  the  building  where  his  ideas  of  form  be 
gin  development  were  a  modest  but  perfect  type  of  some  accredited 
form  of  architecture;  suppose  that  the  interior  walls  were  decorated 
with  some  simple  but  well  and  firmly  drawn  illustrations  of  geogra- 

317 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

phy,  or  of  natural  history;  suppose  that  his  desk  were  complete  in 
its  adaptation,  and  so  neat  in  its  finish  that  he  would  feel  even  a 
pen-blot  like  a  wound,  would  not  the  boy  go  out  from  such  sur 
roundings,  better  fitted  by  reason  of  them,  for  any  of  the  industrial 
arts? 

Shall  I  say  anything  of  those  long  brick  factories  of  recitations 
which  belong  to  a  later  period  of  education?  Will  not  the  kindest 
patrons  of  those  institutions  admit  that  they  must  suggest  some 
what  straggling  and  cubic  notions  of  elegant  architecture?  And 
may  we  not  possibly  find,  in  the  contrast  afforded  in  this  respect 
between  the  universities  of  the  Old  World  and  the  New,  a  partial 
reason  for  that  quicker  taste  and  finer  sense  of  the  elegancies  of 
letters  which  belong  to  the  student  of  Oxford  and  of  Cambridge  ? 
Is  there  not  something  in  those  brown  walls  by  the  Isis,  hoary  with 
age  and  heavy  with  classic  sculpture,  and  in  those  rich,  shaded 
walks  along  the  borders  of  the  Cam,  which  chimes  with  the  mellow 
tones  of  old  learning;  which  brings  freshly  down  to  our  day  the 
sanctity  of  academic  groves,  and  which  quickens  and  nourishes  a 
sense  of  that  elegance  which  sublimed  the  tread  of  the  Grecian  bus 
kin,  and  which  hung  its  votive  garlands  over  every  door  of  science? 

If  American  education  were  somewhat  mollified  (and  it  is 
happily  growing  toward  it  day  by  day)  by  a  recognition  of  taste,  by 
admission  that  there  were  such  matters  as  refinement  and  beauty, 
it  would  bear  its  story  through  all  the  ranks  of  our  workers, 
whether  in  the  arts,  or  the  field.  And  the  result  could  be  traced  in 
every  country  homestead,  in  every  piece  of  mechanism,  and  even 
in  the  manners  of  the  man. 

Observe  that  I  have  dwelt  upon  the  merely  practical  issues 
which  might  flow  from  a  fuller  development  of  our  perceptions  of 
beauty  in  connection  with  education,  and  have  laid  no  stress  upon 
that  enlargement  of  faculties  which  waits  upon  the  search  for  ele 
gance.  That  eye  which  in  youth  is  quick  to  perceive  beauty  is 
quick  also  to  perceive  truth.  .  .  .l 

1  See  also  one  of  his  early  opinions  on  this  same  subject  in  the  New  Englandfr, 
1.207,  April  1843. 

318 


THE    GOSPEL   OF    BEAUTY 

The  beauty  of  architecture  which  he  so  zealously  advo 
cated  has  come  to  Yale.  Over  the  forward-looking  youth  of 
the  old  college,  the  towers  of  Harkness  Memorial  Quadrangle 
now  keep  watch.  The  silent  influence  of  sculptured  face  and 
storied  line  is  felt  at  every  archway.  Within  the  courts  of 
this  sublime  achievement  of  architecture  the  eyes  of  youth, 
quickened  to  a  perception  of  beauty,  may  indeed  be  quick 
ened  to  a  perception  of  truth.  It  is  pleasant  to  record  that 
one  of  the  Branford  Court  entries  of  the  Harkness  Quadran 
gle  has  been  named  in  honor  of  Mr.  Mitchell.  It  is  a  fitting 
tribute  not  alone  to  his  authorship  but  even  more  to  his 
recognition  and  advocacy  of  the  meaning  and  the  influence 
of  great  architecture.  His  alma  mater  has  done  well  thus 
to  associate  his  name  with  her  greatest  triumph  in  the 
realm  of  the  beautiful. 

Into  commerce  and  the  mechanic  arts,  likewise,  Mr. 
Mitchell  believed  it  possible  to  infuse  the  sentiment  of  beau 
ty.  "Taste/'  he  wrote,  "gives  interludes  to  the  merchant's 
life  of  toil.  It  gives  him  holiday  with  his  flowers,  his  family, 
his  library.  It  softens  his  habit,  it  mellows  his  talk,  it 
adorns  his  home  with  objects  that  make  home  cherished. 
It  changes  his  country  retreat  from  a  fashionable  prison- 
house  into  a  hearty  and  honest  enjoyment.  It  stocks  his 
bookshelves  with  what  throws  grace  upon  his  calling.  It 
fits  him  to  wear  with  dignity  and  ease  such  civic  employment 
as  his  wealth  may  bestow  upon  him."  With  regard  to  the 
mechanic  arts  he  felt  that  "  their  perfection  waits  only  upon 
hands  guided  by  a  love  and  a  study  of  the  beautiful." 

The  ugliness,  the  glaring  utilitarianism  of  most  American 
agricultural  life  was  painful  to  him.  "I  do  not  quite  under 
stand,"  he  wrote,  "why  the  American  character,  which  has 
shown  such  wonderful  aptitude  for  thrift  in  other  directions, 


THE    LIFE   OF   DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

should  have  shown  so  little  in  the  direction  of  agricul 
ture.  .  .  .  The  American  is  not  illiberal  by  nature;  a  thou 
sand  proofs  lie  to  the  contrary;  but  by  an  unfortunate  tradi 
tional  belief  he  is  disposed  to  count  the  land  only  a  rigorous 
step-dame  from  which  all  possible  benefit  is  to  be  wrested, 
and  the  least  possible  return  made."  1 

He  recognized  that  such  impoverishment  of  the  land  came 
as  a  result  of  wrong  values;  that  it  was  an  evidence  of 
unimaginative  greed  and  lack  of  refinement.  He  felt  the 
American  need  of  "culture  to  refine,  and  taste  to  appreciate"; 
he  realized  how  much  our  newer,  rawer  civilization  had  to 
learn  from  the  older  civilization  of  Europe.  "Burke  says 
somewhere  with  his  wonderful  improvisation  of  truth,  'To 
make  our  country  loved,  our  country  ought  to  be  lovely/ >: 
he  told  the  public.  "And  what  are  we  doing,"  he  asked, 
"  toward  toning  down  the  roughnesses  of  our  landscape  and 
giving  to  it  that  softness  and  those  charms  which  are  indica 
tions  of  culture  and  feeling  ?  And  here  let  me  observe  that 
true  taste  in  this  regard  interferes  in  no  way  with  economy 
or  with  farming  thrift.  The  British  agriculturist  does  not 
lessen  his  gains  by  the  trimness  of  his  hedges,  nor  the  peas 
ant  spoil  his  day's  work  by  breathing  the  fragrance  of  the 
mignonette  at  his  door.  Every  farm-yard  in  the  land  may 
have  its  wealth  of  trees,  every  pasturage  its  clump  of  shade, 
every  garden  its  trellised  arbor,  every  rivulet  from  the  hills 
its  offices  of  rural  economy  to  fulfill." 

It  was  partly  to  demonstrate  the  soundness  of  this  doc 
trine  that  Mr.  Mitchell  created  Edgewood.  He  liked  such 
concrete  way  of  teaching.  "Good  example,"  he  was  fond 
of  insisting,  "will  do  very  much  in  way  of  reform — more 
in  most  instances  than  any  zeal  of  impeachment."  2  And  so 

1  Out-of-Town  Places,  14.  2  Out-of-Town  Places,  102. 

320 


THE    GOSPEL   OF    BEAUTY 

through  many  years  Edgewood  continued,  in  the  words  of 
Mr.  Arthur  Reed  Kimball,  "to  embody  fidelity  to  an  ideal 
in  a  way  perhaps  unmatched  by  any  other  home  in  America. " 
During  the  sixties  Mr.  Mitchell  constructed  a  roadway  along 
the  ridge  behind  the  house  as  a  means  of  giving  freer  access 
to  his  grounds,  and  regularly  on  Wednesdays  and  Saturdays 
his  gates  were  open  to  the  public.  The  pilgrims  who  came 
to  Edgewood  departed  with  quickened  senses,  and  helped  to 
disseminate  still  more  widely  the  far-reaching  influence  of 
Mr.  Mitchell's  gospel  of  beauty. 

He  was  frequently  told  that  the  public  was  not  yet  ready 
to  adopt  his  teaching,  and  it  is  doubtless  true  that  he  often 
felt  the  loneliness  of  the  pioneer.  Apathy  often  disappointed, 
it  never  discouraged,  him.  "I  know  I  am  writing  in  advance 
of  the  current  practice  in  these  respects,"  he  once  said;  "but 
I  am  equally  sure  that  I  am  not  writing  in  advance  of  the 
current  practice  fifty  years  hence,  if  only  the  schools  are  kept 
open.  The  reputation  of  a  town  for  order,  for  neatness,  for 
liberality,  or  taste  is  even  now  worth  something,  and  it  is 
coming  to  be  worth  more,  year  by  year/' l  He  clearly 
realized  that  a  part  of  his  work  was  to  convince  the  public 
of  the  practicability  of  carrying  out  his  teaching,  to  assure 
them  that  it  was  not  in  violation  of  practical  aims.  "I  have 
dwelt  upon  this  point,"  he  wrote  in  1867,  "because  I  love  to 
believe  and  to  teach  that  in  these  respects  true  taste  and  true 
economy  are  accordant,  and  that  the  graces  of  life,  as  well  as 
the  profits,  may  be  kept  in  view  by  every  ruralist,  whether 
farmer  or  amateur."  2  By  example  and  by  word  he  strove  to 
impress  upon  his  countrymen  the  fact  that  taste  and  economy 
harmonize.  He  was  a  witness  to  the  truth,  a  witness  who 
never  despaired  of  ultimate  triumph.  "I  feel  sure,"  he 

1  Out-of-Town  Places,  161-162.  J  Out-of-Town  Places,  188. 

321 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

wrote  in  closing  the  articles  which  went  to  make  up  Out-of- 
Town  Places y  "I  feel  sure  that  the  highest  beauty  of  land 
scape  will  ultimately  bring  no  loss;  and  I  forecast  confidently 
the  time — perhaps  a  century  hence — when  all  the  beauties 
and  all  the  economies  and  all  the  humanities  will  be  in 
leash."  * 

Mr.  Mitchell  believed  just  as  firmly  that  the  sentiment  of 
beauty  should  underlie  all  our  social  development.  Indeed, 
he  always  held  that  a  refined  taste  counted  for  much  more 
than  a  knowledge  of  conventions.  "Taste  and  refinement 
more  than  anything  besides  make  the  gentleman,"  he  main 
tained.  "Indeed,  essential  politeness  is  nothing  more  than 
kindness  joined  to  grace.  To  be  gentle  without  being  kind, 
involves  a  paradox.  But  kindness  to  be  known  must  have 
expression.  It  may  have  rude  expression;  but  if  it  have 
beautiful  expression,  what  we  call  manner  is  perfected." 

It  can  readily  be  seen  that  here  was  a  man  for  whom  the 
sentiment  of  beauty  was  an  ever-present  ideal.  In  this 
respect  he  was  a  Grecian,  and  it  is  not  extravagant  to  say 
that  the  work  which  he  accomplished  in  harmony  with  such 
ideal  is  a  part  of  the  immortality  of  perfection.  I  cannot  do 
better  than  to  close  with  words  of  his  own:  "With  the  Greeks 
the  sentiment  of  beauty  was  a  constantly  pervading  impulse, 
coloring  their  whole  life  and  action.  Streets,  houses,  mar 
bles,  gardens,  speech,  and  manner  were  all  blazing  with 
it.  ...  The  spirit  of  beauty,  when  once  it  has  entered  so 
thoroughly  into  the  life  of  a  nation  as  it  did  into  the  life  of 
those  great  Greeks,  can  never  die.  Death  is  not  a  word  that 
reaches  it." 

1  Out-of-Town  Places,  323. 


322 


XVI 

QUIET  HEROISM 

We  are  our  own  masters,  and  we  can  battle  just  as  stoutly 
against  the  world  as  we  do  choose. — D.  G.  M.  in  note-book, 
Portland,  Maine,  September  i8th,  1852. 

After  Mr.  Mitchell's  retirement  to  Edgewood,  newspapers 
and  magazines  frequently  spoke  of  him  as  living  in  "lettered 
ease,"  and  it  was  doubtless  popularly  believed  that  Ik  Mar 
vel  was  dreaming  out  an  ideal  existence  far  from  the  cares 
and  anxieties  of  the  busy  world.  The  legend  was  pretty  and 
idyllic,  but  altogether  untrue.  Lettered  ease,  Mr.  Mitchell 
never  knew.  To  be  sure,  Edgewood  was  a  place  of  beauty 
and  of  quiet — increasingly  so  with  each  year;  but  it  was  on 
earth,  and  not  in  heaven;  very  often  the  wavering  shadows  of 
care  fell  athwart  its  quietude,  and  remained  long.  Indeed, 
the  whole  course  of  Mr.  Mitchell's  life  demanded  high  cour 
age.  Confronted  from  his  earliest  years  by  bodily  weak 
nesses,  and  by  sorrows  which  touched  him  closely,  he  had 
nevertheless  shown  no  lack  of  resolution  and  fortitude. 
Against  all  obstacles  he  had  struggled  to  a  reasonable 
strength  of  body,  and  had  won  for  himself  a  home  and  a  posi 
tion  in  the  world.  Now,  by  an  unexpected  turn  of  fortune, 
he  found  himself  confronted  by  a  task  that  was  for  years  to 
try  his  whole  strength.  His  quiet  and  persistent  struggle  to 
pay  for  Edgewood,  and  to  maintain  it  for  the  purposes  he  had 
in  mind,  constitutes  what  was  perhaps  the  greatest  heroism 
of  his  long  life.  The  experience  developed  in  the  entire 
Mitchell  family  the  finest  qualities  of  character;  under  the 

323 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

necessities  laid  upon  them  each  one  gained  in  strength  of  will 
and  temper  of  mind.  A  part  of  the  meaning  of  Edgewood 
arises  from  the  fact  that  it  was  a  home  of  serious  intent, 
straightforward  purpose,  active  endeavor,  and  earnest  living. 
The  purchase  of  the  original  2oo-acre  tract  of  Edge- 
wood  involved  Mr.  Mitchell  in  a  first  debt.  The  agricul 
tural  successes  of  the  first  years  brought  a  desire  for  in 
creased  acreage;  indeed,  for  a  time  Mr.  Mitchell  developed 
a  pronounced  case  of  land-fever,  in  consequence  of  which  the 
area  of  Edgewood  was  enlarged  to  almost  360  acres.  Of 
course  these  additional  purchases  meant  increased  debt. 
Once,  in  order  to  insure  possession  of  a  contiguous  tract  of 
land,  Mrs.  Mitchell  sold  the  diamonds  which  formed  a  part 
of  her  dowry.  For  a  time  all  went  well.  With  the  Civil  War, 
however,  came  added  financial  burdens.  Costs  of  develop 
ment  and  repair  were  meanwhile  steadily  growing.  Within 
a  dozen  years,  the  old  homestead,  in  a  state  of  uncertain  re 
pair  even  in  1855,  was  falling  into  decay.  Moreover,  it  had 
become  entirely  inadequate  to  the  accommodation  of  the 
rapidly  increasing  family.  The  new  Edgewood — the  present 
homestead — intended  as  it  was  for  a  large  family,  was  com 
pleted  in  1872,  at  a  cost  probably  exceeding  $20,000.  It 
necessitated,  of  course,  a  proportionate  operating  expense. 
At  the  time  of  these  additional  purchases  of  land,  and  the 
building  of  the  new  home,  a  pronounced  real-estate  and 
building  activity  in  New  Haven  led  Mr.  Mitchell  to  antici 
pate  a  large  increase  in  the  value  of  his  holdings.  He  thought 
it  certain  that  in  consequence  of  the  city's  extension  to  the 
westward  he  would  realize  a  goodly  sum  from  that  portion 
of  his  land  which  lies  east  of  what  is  now  Forest  Street. 
All  of  his  anticipations  failed  of  immediate  realization.  The 
development  of  New  Haven  for  the  time  was  in  another 

324 


QUIET    HEROISM 

direction.  The  severe  financial  depression  of  the  seventies 
came  on,  and  left  him  burdened  with  a  debt  of  over  $50,000. 
It  was  a  staggering  blow  for  a  man  of  his  health  and  tem 
perament. 

Almost  immediately  after  the  purchase  of  Edgewood  in 
1855  Mr.  Mitchell  attacked  the  problem  of  debt.  He  lec 
tured  on  history,  literature,  art,  and  agriculture;  he  wrote  for 
newspapers  and  magazines;  he  did  editorial  work  on  the 
Atlantic  Almanac  ;  he  turned  actively  to  landscape-garden 
ing;  and  all  the  time  pushed  the  productive  capacity  of 
his  farmlands  to  the  utmost.  Once,  in  1868,  when  he  was 
called  to  the  editorship  of  Hearth  and  Home  at  a  salary 
of  $5,000  a  year,  it  seemed  to  him  that  a  way  out  had 
opened.  During  the  two  years  of  his  editorial  work  he 
usually  spent  at  least  three  days  of  each  week  in  New  York 
City.  Railway  travel  necessitated  leaving  New  Haven  at 
5.30  in  the  morning,  and  reaching  Edgewood  late  at  night. 
It  was  strenuous  work  for  a  man  never  strong.  Even  this 
difficult  and  wearing  enterprise  ended  with  the  financial  dis 
aster  which  overtook  the  publishers.  When  the  business  de 
pression  of  the  seventies  came  on,  he  once  more  set  himself 
resolutely  to  the  heavy  work  of  reducing  a  vastly  increased 
burden  of  debt. 

To  form  a  proper  conception  of  Mr.  Mitchell's  character 
it  is  necessary  to  remember  the  conditions  of  temperament 
and  health  and  outward  circumstance  against  which  he 
struggled.  We  need  to  keep  in  mind  his  sensitive,  often 
moody,  nature — now  depressed  by  illness,  again  shaken  by 
severe  neuralgic  headaches.  The  public  knew  nothing  of  all 
this.  Only  the  members  of  his  own  family,  and  a  few  inti 
mate  friends,  knew  the  difficulties  which  beset  him.  Inas 
much  as  he  accomplished  his  life-work  in  defiance  of  physical 

3*5 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

weaknesses,  they  must  not  be  overemphasized.  The  por 
trait  would  not  be  faithful,  however,  without  a  proper  blend 
ing  of  these  shadows. 

With  the  exception  of  his  wife,  to  no  one  did  Mr.  Mitchell 
reveal  more  of  his  inner  feeling  than  to  W.  H.  Huntington. 
Their  wide  separation  during  many  years  served  only  to  in 
crease  their  friendship,  and  gave  occasion  for  the  frequent 
writing  of  long  letters.  I  shall  give  first  a  portion  of  one  of 
Mr.  Mitchell's  letters  dated  August  2oth,  1858: 

If  you  had  wife  and  children,  and  farm,  and  cows,  and  pigs,  and 
chickens,  and  hay  to  cut,  and  corn  to  hoe,  and  muck  to  dig,  and 
bills  to  pay  (for  family  groceries),  you  would  understand  why  I 
have  not  answered  sooner.  Of  course  you  haven't  any  of  these 
things  on  your  hands,  or  thoughts,  and  of  course  you  are  as 
recreant  and  gleeful  as  an  oldish  boy  of  six  or  seven  and  thirty  can 
be.  Of  course  you  have  made  a  mistake  in  not  having  some  of 
these  cares  on  your  thought;  and  of  course  you  know  it,  and  admit 
it;  and  of  course  you  don't  mean  to  mend;  and  of  course  you  won't; 
and  of  course  you  know  all  this;  of  course  you  do. 

But  isn't  it  odd  how  life  leans  sharply  toward  the  ending  after 
five  and  thirty?  Did  it  ever  occur  to  you  ?  It  makes  me  scratch 
my  head  very  nervously  sometimes;  not  that  any  great  desire  of 
doubling  life  is  entertained — very  far  from  it;  but  the  oppressive 
weight  of  the  superficialities  and  good-for-nothingnesses  which 
have  given  it  body  so  far,  is  hard  to  bear.  I  am  going  to  make 
a  fairish  potato  crop  this  year — quite  so;  what  then?  It  seems 
as  if  thirty  and  odd  years  of  suns  and  showers,  glorious  noons 
and  all  sorts  of  moonlight  and  that  kind  of  thing,  ought  to  work 
out  something  more  than  power,  and  satisfaction,  and  content,  in 
the  matter  of  a  fairish  potato  crop. 

I  am  a  little  ailing  to-night,  as  you  see;  but  shan't  stave  out  the 
sickly  colors  that  come  first  to  hand,  in  painting  a  letter  for  you. 

I  haven't  accomplished  much  pen-ways  since  you  left;  partly 

326 


QUIET    HEROISM 

because  such  agreeable  and  altogether  fascinating  inertium  belongs 
to  this  country  quiet;  partly  because  the  villainously  blue  times 
have  not  favored  any  speculative  literary  projects;  partly  because 
things  literary  are  inch  by  inch  losing  their  charms  for  me;  partly 
because  (an  old  reason  with  you)  I  don't  want  to. 

Then  again  living  outside  of  cities,  and  outside  the  clash  that 
comes  of  every  day's  outlook  and  listening  to  the  world's  din,  dis 
poses  a  man  to  silence.  Long  and  far-off  listening  makes  one 
apter  to  listen  than  to  talk;  and  you  know  here  in  the  country 
talking  chances  are  rare,  I  mean  the  chances  that  test  a  man, 
and  summon  his  rusty  capabilities,  and  oil  them  and  brighten 
them.  .  .  . 

...  I  should  like  to  give  you  some  book  commissions,  but  am 
too  poor.  My  pay  to  the  panic  has  been  about  $4,000  lost  cleanly, 
and  to  make  it  worse,  all  by  my  own  folly. 

If  there  was  any  one  thing  which  Mr.  Mitchell  grew  to 
dislike  more  than  another  it  was  public  lecturing.  Notwith 
standing  his  aversion  to  the  work,  it  was  generally  his  custom 
until  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War  to  give  a  portion  of  the 
winter  months  to  extended  lecture  tours.  A  letter  written 
to  Mrs.  Mitchell  from  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  December  ijth, 
1859,  helps  us  to  understand  his  feeling,  and  to  appreciate 
some  of  the  difficulties  under  which  he  labored: 

I  didn't  know  how  dependent  I  was  upon  you  .  .  .  till  I  came 
so  far  away  from  you,  or  allowed  you  to  go  so  far  away  from  me. 
If  it  were  not  for  the  continual  excitement  of  change,  and  the  con 
stant  fight  against  all  the  vexations  of  travel  here  in  this  raw, 
crude,  half-civilized  West,  I  should  grow  terribly  blue. 

To-day  I  am  from  Columbus,  Ohio,  where  I  lectured  last  night 
to  a  crowded,  and  upon  the  whole,  most  sympathetic,  house  I  have 
had  yet.  .  .  .  There,  as  also  at  Dayton,  where  I  lectured  to  an 
^^-sympathetic  audience  the  night  previous,  the  papers  report  my 

3*7 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

audience  as  "  the  most  crowded  of  the  season."  The  great  trouble 
is  with  the  too  quiet  and  subdued  character  of  the  lecture.  Western 
taste;  that  is  to  say,  the  mass  of  it,  craves  something  more  high 
falutin.  The  best  people,  however,  and  cultivated  ones,  are,  I  am 
sure,  satisfied.  .  .  . 

I  suppose  I  have  told  you  all  about  my  Cincinnati  lecture;  how 
it  was  crowded;  how  a  good  many  in  the  far  part  did  not  hear  me. 
Indeed,  my  voice  has  suffered  from  old  throat  trouble  first  begun 
in  New  York;  and  though  last  night  my  voice  was  strong  enough 
again,  yet  the  cold  has  settled  into  a  somewhat  worrisome  cough, 
which  if  I  do  not  break  into  more  manageable  condition  by  my 
Monday's  lecture  at  Chillicothe,  I  shall  be  compelled  to  forego 
my  western  appointments.  Have  I  told  you  of  these?  Chicago, 
Milwaukee,  Madison,  Kenosha,  Lafayette,  St.  Louis,  besides  De 
troit,  Michigan  University,  New  Albany,  Louisville,  Indianapolis, 
Springfield,  Evansville,  Zanesville — all  of  which  latter  I  have  been 
compelled  to  decline  on  the  score  of  time.  If  I  were  well/«//y,  and 
could  fill  all  these,  it  would  be  worth  the  doing;  but 

[E]ven  now,  if  this  cold  keeps  on  me,  I  may  not  get  to  Chicago; 
if  so,  all  the  worse,  and  we  must  struggle  against  the  fates  and 
January  bills  a  little  longer.  ...  If  I  do  not  go  West,  I  shall 
start  directly  for  New  Haven,  make  provision  against  January 
accounts  as  I  best  can,  and  sail  for  Charleston  to  join  you.  ...  I 
trust,  however,  I  may  be  able  to  struggle  through.  .  .  .  How 
unfortunate  that  just  at  this  time  of  my  greatest  need  of  strength, 
I  should  have  my  only  hard  cold  these  two  years.  Well,  as  you 
would  say,  we  mustn't  quarrel  with  Providence.  .  .  . 

I  regret  over  and  over  not  having  brought  my  grandiloquent  and 
absurd  lecture  about  Beauty.  It  would  have  hit  Western  taste  in 
the  eye,  and  I  should  have  succeeded,  and  been  ashamed  of  myself 
for  doing  it.  ... 

I  never  learned  to  love  so  much  as  now  the  quiet  of  a  country 
home,  and  I  long  for  it  every  hour  I  am  absent,  or  you  are  absent. 
It  is  all  judge  about  my  being  out  of  place,  or  losing  place  there. 

328 


QUIET   HEROISM 

The  truth  is  I  put  a  lower  and  lower  estimate  upon  reputation 
every  hour  I  live,  and  have  I  not  reason?  That  lecture  on  Beauty, 
so  bombastic  and  sophomoric  that  I  should  have  been  ashamed  to 
print  it  with  my  name,  used  to  call  down  twice  the  applause  and 
content  that  this  labored  and  delicately  wrought  one  on  Venice 
does.  I  find  that  all  the  most  artfully  worked  allusions,  and  most 
carefully  worded  analogies,  and  historic  comparisons  fall  absolutely 
still-born,  while  my  old  rodomontade  of  five  years  ago  was  prodig 
ious.  Is  this  not  enough  to  make  one  undervalue,  or  rather  not 
value  at  all,  the  puff  of  popular  favor?  In  very  truth,  if  it  were 
not  to  pay  off  the  farm  debts,  I  do  not  believe  I  would  ever  put 
pen  to  paper  again  in  the  world. 

You  see  that  this  [is]  in  blue  vein,  and  you  will  quarrel  with  it. 
I  expect  that.  But  you  will  half-acquiesce  when  I  tell  you  that  I 
enjoy  infinitely  more  a  week  with  you  and  the  children  than  all  the 
lecture  applause  that  could  be  crowded  into  a  twelvemonth.  .  .  . 

Frequently  the  struggle  seemed  interminable,  and  all 
ways  to  final  victory  closed.  A  portion  of  a  letter  to  Hunt- 
ington  reveals  the  depths  from  which  Mr.  Mitchell  some 
times  had  to  rise: 

I  am  shabby,  I  know;  I  am  careless,  I  know;  I  ought  to  have 
answered  your  last,  long  ago,  I  know.  But  what  then  ?  We  both 
fail  to  do  so  many  things  we  ought  to  do,  that  we  will  lurnp  to 
gether  our  sins  of  omission,  and  cry  to  the  wall.  I  am  just  at  this 
time,  2d  January  '67,  and  for  two  weeks  last  past,  suffering  from 
the  severest,  and  most  unyielding,  and  most  devilish  fit  of  the  blues 
which  ever  before  oppressed  me;  so  I  warn  you  fairly,  look  for  the 
blueness  tingeing  every  edge  of  this  sheet !  It  is  a  shame,  I  know 
and  confess  to  myself  when  I  hear  those  little  feet  pattering  up  and 
down  the  stairs,  and  when  the  rosy  faces  come  setting  themselves 
into  door-cracks,  as  innocents  look  through  bars  at  wild  beasts  in 
the  menageries.  But  what  then?  The  mere  consciousness  of  the 
foulness  of  the  thing  makes  it  hang  more  heavily.  I  sometimes 

329 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

think  I  have  made  a  grand  mistake  in  fronting  this  country  isola 
tion  as  I  have  done,  and  in  trying  to  brave  it  down;  for  in  it  lies 
much  of  the  secret  of  the  blueness.  Sometimes  the  hills,  and  trees, 
and  coppices,  and  walks  that  have  enamored,  and  do  still  so  enamor 
me,  seem  only  a  devil's  net-work  against  which  I  kick  and  struggle 
vainly,  and  they  leashing  me  all  the  more  surely. 

By  1868,  it  seemed  to  Mr.  Mitchell  that  he  must  relin 
quish  Edgewood.  "The  truth  is,"  he  informed  Huntington, 
"I  can't  keep  it  up  now  with  any  decency;  it  is  too  big  for 
me,  without  better  manager  than  I  am  in  the  way  of  securing. 
It  has  been  a  dearish  old  place,  and  I  should  hate  to  say  a 
quittance;  but  fear  it  must  be."  His  fear,  however,  was  not 
realized.  With  1869  came  a  prospect  of  better  things. 
Three  years  later  the  new  homestead  was  built.  The  intense 
application  of  the  past  was,  however,  now  telling  upon  him 
with  each  year.  "Life  has  turned  wearily  with  me  since  the 
fifty  is  marked,"  he  confided  to  Huntington  in  1872,  "and  a 
great  depression  has  come  over  me  by  reason  of  fierce  head 
aches  that  have  racked  me  fearfully.  I  hope  you  fight  the 
years  more  courageously  and  hopefully."  These  sentences 
are  nevertheless  followed  by  suggestions  of  further  books, 
and  the  first  outlines  of  Old  Story  Tellers.  "When  shall  we 
ever  see  you  again?"  he  asks  in  closing.  "It  would  lift 
away  two  years  from  my  head  to  see  you  and  talk  with  you. 
A  new  house  I  have  just  built  (we  being  now  in  agony  of  re 
moval,  with  the  terrible  dilapidation  of  the  old  library)  will 
give  you  cover,  whenever  you  will.  But  I  never  count  on 
the  happiness  in  the  new  that  has  belonged  to  the  old." 

A  few  years  later  a  period  of  business  depression  made 
matters  still  more  difficult.  Huntington  and  other  friends 
came  forward  with  offers  of  financial  aid,  but  as  usual  Mr. 

330 


QUIET   HEROISM 

Mitchell  hesitated  to  accept.     On  the  2oth  of  November 
1876,  he  wrote  to  Huntington  as  follows: 

Of  course  it  is  easy,  looking  back,  to  see  where  my  follies  and 
unwisdom  have  come  in — most  of  all  in  counting  upon  our  high- 
tides  of  three  years  ago,  when  it  seemed  my  land  here  would  realize 
enough  to  keep  me  safe,  and  to  build  a  house  which,  seeing  that 
the  old  one  was  in  tumble-down  condition,  would  give  roof  enough 
to  shelter  us  all;  so  I  built — and  larger  than  I  should — and  went  in 
debt — and  counted  on  sales  to  help  me — and  the  dead  time  came 
and  stranded  me,  with  all  sorts  of  taxes  at  their  highest,  and  all 
chances  of  income  at  the  lowest.  With  the  hopefulness  and  quick 
blood  which  belonged  to  forty  (a.)  't  would  not  have  been  so  un 
bearable;  but  anxieties  and  sleeplessness  at  fifty-four  set  astir  all 
the  weakly  and  wayward  currents  in  a  man's  brain,  and  with  me 
have  intensified  the  old  neuralgic  tendencies,  and  kept  me  lashed 
into  a  dreadfully  barren  unrest.  I  am  trying  to  do  what  I  can  in 
lucid  intervals;  and  wife  and  children  through  all,  and  in  prospect 
of  whatever  may  come,  are  most  helpful  and  cheery  and  willingly 
disposed.  It  would  do  your  heart  good  to  see  how  thoughtful  and 
kindly  they  are ! 

I  have  offered  my  whole  place  for  sale  at  thirty  to  forty  per 
cent,  less  than  would  have  been  counted  a  fair  price  three  years 
ago;  but  there  is  not  even  an  enquirer.  .  .  . 

I  hardly  know  what  to  say  of  your  most  kindly  offer.  In  our 
straits,  it  tempts  overmuch;  yet  I  reluctate,  seeing  how  far  off 
may  be  repayment.  But  after  all,  necessities  may  force  accep 
tance,  and  if  such  come — and  forced  sales — I  think  there  will  be 
enough  to  pay  up  all  debts,  whatever  may  be  left  to  us.  ...  That 
break-down  of  the  Hearth  and  Home,  which  I  thought  offered  re 
liable  work  in  my  line,  was  a  fearful  discouragement  to  me.  Judd 
and  original  owners  sank  over  $200,000  in  it. 

Many  other  friends  of  Mr.  Mitchell  would  have  been  glad 
to  assist  him,  but  an  intense  dislike  of  allowing  others  to 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

assume  his  burdens  prevented  him  from  accepting  such  aid. 
Almost  alone  he  carried  through  the  task  until  the  members 
of  his  own  household  were  in  position  to  help.  There  could 
be  no  more  eloquent  testimony  to  the  love  and  fortitude  in 
spired  by  a  father  and  a  mother  than  the  manner  in  which 
every  son  and  daughter  of  Edgewood — and  I  include  those 
who  came  into  the  family  by  marriage — assisted  in  sav 
ing  the  well-loved  home.  Nor  must  I  fail  to  make  mention 
of  the  generous  help  given  by  Mr.  Mitchell's  brother  Alfred. 
I  need  not  record  in  further  detail  the  progress  of  the 
long  struggle  to  final  freedom  from  debt.  It  is  enough  to 
say  that  Mitchell  confronted  the  task  with  all  the  courage 
and  persistence  of  Sir  Walter  Scott.  The  public  knew  almost 
nothing  of  this  chapter  of  his  life.  The  following  passage 
from  a  letter  of  November  loth,  1882,  to  his  daughter  Eliza 
beth,  who  was  then  travelling  with  her  uncle  in  England,  re 
veals  something  of  the  quiet  resignation  into  which  he  grew: 
"I  wish  ...  I  could  know  what  seat  you  held  in  the  rail 
road  carriage  on  trip  to  London,  and  so  have  looked  out  with 
you  at  the  ravishing  things  you  will  have  seen.  Isn't  it 
a  contrast  with  the  Woodbridge  roads  ?  Well,  I  had  a  dream 
once  of  making  some  little  spot  of  New  England  just  as  green 
and  neat  and  flower-ful,  and  just  as  fragrant  with  all  the 
winningest  of  rusticities;  but  the  dream  broke  long  ago 
when  the  purse  bottom  dropped  out,  and  my  only  hope  now 
is  that  the  heaven  to  which  such  badish  people  as  I  may  go, 
will  have  its  green  fields,  and  roses,  and  oak  trees,  and  pleas 
ant  driving  places,  and  such  visitors  as  you !  Don't  spurn 
my  theology,  I  pray  you;  for  it  grows  out  of  my  cheerfullest 
way  of  thinking  of  which  there  has  not  been  overmuch  since 
your  going  away."  Only  now  and  then  was  a  sharp  cry 
wrung  from  him.  "I  come  by  money  so  scantly  nowadays," 

332 


QUIET    HEROISM 

he  wrote  to  his  publisher,  Charles  Scribner,  August  i6th, 
1889,  "that  I  clutch  at  it  with  a  sharpness  that  shames  me. 
I  hope  for  a  country  some  day  (to  live  in)  where  money  isn't 
needed."  His  experience  led  him  to  deprecate  borrowing. 
"Don't  run  In  debt — no  matter  what  your  pay  may  be,"  he 
wrote  to  his  son  Donald,  April  5th,  1884.  "Wear  homespun, 
and  eat  corn-cake  if  necessary  rather  than  run  in  debt.  I 
tell  you  this  with  an  earnestness  that  is  sharpened  by  the 
torture  I  have  felt  for  years.  Don't  plan  to  spend  just  your 
income;  it  is  like  trying  to  balance  yourself  on  a  fine  wire. 
Plan  always  to  have  a  little  over  to  put  to  next  year's,  or  next 
month's  account." 

It  is  pleasant  to  know  that  after  the  long  struggle  Mr. 
Mitchell  with  mind  at  ease  lived  to  enjoy  Edgewood,  and 
to  rest  in  the  assurance  that  it  would  pass  on  to  his  children. 
It  is  pleasing,  also,  to  record  that  his  judgment  has  been  vin 
dicated.  New  Haven  has  no  more  beautiful  residential  dis 
trict  than  that  which  is  now  building  on  the  plain  below  the 
shadows  of  Edgewood.  And  were  the  Master  of  Edgewood 
alive  to-day,  he  could  see  the  fruitage  of  his  example  in  the 
charming  and  well-kept  homes  that  cluster  upon  his  old 
farmlands.  He  would  doubtless  feel  that  the  difficult  task 
was,  after  all,  well  worth  performing;  that  the  struggle  did 
avail. 


333 


XVII 
HOME  LIFE 

Poets  and  places  beguile  one  to  roam, 
Yet  pleasantest  paths  lead  evermore  home ! 

— D.  G.  M.  in  letter  to  his  daughter  Harriet. 

Not  bread,  nor  meat,  nor  wine, 
But  fire  on  hearth,  and  cheer  in  grateful  hearts 
Make  home  divine. 

— D.  G.  M's  inscription  for  mahogany  panel  in  the  home  of 
his  daughter,  Mary  Mitchell  Ryerson. 

Mr.  Mitchell's  warmest  affections  centred  in  his  home. 
To  him  the  very  word  was  one  of  the  richest  and  most  mean 
ingful  in  the  English  language,  one  that  quickened  his  mem 
ory  and  inspired  his  hope.  "From  my  soul  I  pity  him  whose 
soul  does  not  leap  at  the  mere  mention  of  that  name,"  he 
once  wrote.  As  we  are  well  aware,  his  love  of  home  was  not 
a  quick-blossoming,  transient  affection;  it  was  long-nurtured, 
deep-rooted,  permanent.  From  the  sorrows  and  broken 
hopes  of  childhood,  from  the  wanderings  and  restlessness  of 
early  manhood,  he  turned  always  to  a  vision  of  home  as  the 
goal  of  earthly  happiness.  Always,  too,  he  associated  the 
home  of  his  dreams  with  the  songs  of  birds,  the  color  and  the 
perfume  of  flowers,  and  the  shadows  of  great  trees.  For 
these  he  deliberately  turned  his  back  upon  the  city,  and  all 
that  it  had  to  offer  of  social  distinction  and  popular  applause. 

We  have  seen  how  he  grew  inevitably  toward  Edgewood. 
There,  so  far  as  earth  permits,  he  realized  his  dreams.  There, 
beyond  any  doubt,  his  virtues  best  grew.  Edgewood  be- 

334 


HOME    LIFE 

came  the  retreat  from  which  he  could  be  lured  seldom  and 
only  with  difficulty.  His  love  of  home  gradually  weaned 
him  from  the  world.  "Some  of  my  friends  call  me  a  re 
cluse/'  he  once  said,  "but  I  do  not  mean  to  be  one.'*  And 
yet  he  early  recognized  the  loosening  of  other  ties.  "I  love 
home  and  homely  subjects,"  run  the  opening  words  of  one  of 
his  lectures,  "but  I  think  you  will  understand  me  when  I  say 
that  the  very  love  I  bear  the  subject  is  one  which  stands 
grievously  in  the  way  of  that  public  life  which  alone  fits  a 
man  to  be  a  public  talker."  In  comparison  with  a  home  all 
other  things  to  a  man  of  such  nature  were  but  loss. 

Edgewood  was,  indeed,  the  creation  of  a  man  who  knew 
clearly  just  what  he  had  in  mind.  Of  the  purposes  which 
actuated  the  outdoor  life,  I  have  already  written.  Equally 
definite  notions  governed  the  finer  issues  of  the  life  beneath 
the  roof-tree.  "Whatever  house  is  to  make  a  true  home," 
Mr.  Mitchell  wrote,  "must  be  lived  in,  and  carry  smack  of 
hospitality  all  over."  The  Edgewood  homesteads  fulfilled 
this  requirement.  For  seventeen  years  the  original  farm 
house,  a  low,  rambling  structure  distinguished  by  a  restful 
coziness  and  an  "old-fashioned  humility,"  sheltered  the 
family.  This  was  the  house  which  we  must  always  associate 
with  Wet  Days  and  My  Farm  of  Edgewood^  the  house  in  which 
all  but  three  of  the  Mitchell  children  were  born.  Mr. 
Mitchell  loved  its  air  of  old-fashioned  ease  and  comfort,  and 
with  the  greatest  reluctance  decided  upon  its  removal.1 
When  he  turned  to  building  anew,  he  sought  to  perpetuate 
all  its  desirable  features;  and  in  consequence  the  present 
home,  though  larger,  retains  much  of  the  atmosphere  and 
many  of  the  charming  qualities  of  the  old. 

I  have  spoken  of  Edgewood  as  a  creation,  and  so  it  was, 

1  See  his  description  of  the  old  library  window  in  My  Farm  of  Edgewood,  333-337. 

335 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

both  indoors  and  out.  For  Mr.  Mitchell,  as  I  have  taken 
care  to  observe,  always  worked  deliberately.  He  thought  of 
a  home  as  a  living  organism,  as  a  thing  subject  to  growth  and 
change,  not  as  a  thing  finished  once  for  all. 

The  home  and  its  apartments  should  not  be  treated  as  a  dead 
thing,  where  we  make  best  arrangement  of  its  fittings  and  there 
leave  it.  It  must  grow  in  range  and  in  expression  with  our  necessi 
ties,  and  diverging  and  developing  tastes.  The  best  of  decorators 
cannot  put  that  last  finish  which  must  come  from  home  hands.  It 
is  a  great  canvas  always  on  the  easel  before  us — growing  in  its 
power  to  interest  every  day  and  year — never  getting  its  last 
touches — never  quite  ready  to  be  taken  down  and  parted  with. 
No  home  should  so  far  out-top  the  tastes  of  its  inmates  that  they 
cannot  somewhere  and  somehow  deck  it  with  the  record  of  their 
love  and  culture.  It  is  an  awful  thing  to  live  in  a  house  where  no 
new  nail  can  be  driven  in  the  wall,  and  no  tray  of  wild  flowers,  or 
of  wood  mosses,  be  set  upon  a  window  sill.1 

For  upward  of  fifty-four  years  Mr.  Mitchell  wrought  at 
Edgewood  in  the  spirit  of  the  foregoing  passage.  The  present 
homestead  has  all  the  atmosphere  of  a  house  that  is  to  be 
lived  in.  It  is  not,  and  never  was  intended  to  be,  a  show- 
place.  Its  woodwork,  having  only  the  stain  of  natural 
color,  never  carried  an  appearance  of  newness  and  gloss.  The 
windows,  light  and  roomy,  afford  abundant  space  for  flowers. 
Water-drops  only  add  to  the  stains  of  age  which  are  gradu 
ally  mellowing  the  colors  of  the  wood.  Within,  the  house 
everywhere  suggests  room,  breadth,  comfort. 

Almost  a  quarter  of  a  century  before  the  present  home 
stead  was  constructed,  Ik  Marvel  was  weaving  his  visions  of 
the  future;  and  this  is  the  home  of  which  he  dreamed: 

1  Bound  Together,  282. 

336 


HOME    LIFE 

The  cottage  is  no  mock  cottage,  but  a  substantial,  wide-spread 
ing  cottage  with  clustering  gables  and  ample  shade — such  a  cottage 
as  they  build  upon  the  slopes  of  Devon.  Vines  clamber  over  it, 
and  the  stones  show  mossy  through  the  interlacing  climbers. 
There  are  low  porches  with  cozy  arm-chairs,  and  generous  oriels 
fragrant  with  mignonette  and  the  blue-blossoming  violets.  The 
chimney-stacks  rise  high,  and  show  clear  against  the  heavy  pine- 
trees  that  ward  off  the  blasts  of  winter.  .  .  .  Within  the  cottage 
the  library  is  wainscoted  with  native  oak;  and  my  trusty  gun  hangs 
upon  a  branching  pair  of  antlers.  .  .  .  An  old-fashioned  mantel 
is  above  the  brown  stone  jambs  of  the  country  fireplace,  and  along 
it  are  distributed  records  of  travel.  .  .  .  Massive  chairs  stand 
here  and  there  in  tempting  attitude;  strewed  over  an  oaken  table 
in  the  middle  are  the  uncut  papers  and  volumes  of  the  day;  and 
upon  a  lion's  skin  stretched  before  the  hearth  is  lying  another 
Tray.1 

Almost  without  the  change  of  a  word  that  description  fits 
the  Edgewood  home.  Few  dreams  have  ever  been  realized 
so  fully,  or  in  such  minute  detail.  The  dream,  in  fact,  was 
none  other  than  the  unfolding  plan  of  the  home-builder. 

Absorbed  in  the  duties  and  the  pleasures  of  such  a  home, 
it  is  not  strange  that  Mr.  Mitchell  was  content  to  let  the 
world  go  its  way.  Soon  after  his  retirement  to  Edgewood 
an  old  friend  said  of  him  that  he  was  "the  most  married 
man"  she  had  ever  known.  There  was  truth  in  the  remark. 
Much  of  the  happiness  and  contentment  of  his  life  grew  out 
of  his  fortunate  marriage.  Mrs.  Mitchell  was  by  nature 
hopeful  and  buoyant — a  lover  of  human  fellowships.  She 
knew  how  to  counteract  her  husband's  moods  of  depression 
and  melancholy.  She  knew,  also,  how  to  respect  those  sea 
sons  when  he  wished  to  be  alone  and  undisturbed.  She  had 

1  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor,  286-288. 
337 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

remarkable  business  ability,  and  administered  the  affairs  of 
her  large  household  with  consummate  skill.  She  identified 
herself  whole-heartedly  with  the  development  of  Edgewood, 
and  bore  without  complaint  what  were  undoubtedly  for  her 
very  actual  burdens  of  loneliness  and  isolation.  Had  he 
searched  long  and  painstakingly  he  could  scarcely  have 
found  a  woman  better  suited  to  his  nature.  He  had  recog 
nized  almost  at  their  first  meeting  the  qualities  which  made 
her  necessary  to  him,  and  he  never  ceased  to  pay  tribute  to 
them.  "More  than  ever  I  miss  you  now,  my  dearest  wife; 
more  than  ever,  when  the  clouds  come,  and  the  rain  keeps 
me  indoors,  I  feel  the  want  of  you  to  drive  away  false  humors, 
to  quicken  my  courage,  to  cheer  me,  and  to  make  me  cling 
even  to  the  vanities  of  life,"  he  wrote  on  the  2d  of  June  1855. 
"I  feel  now,  too,  more  than  ever  how  much  more  to  me  you 
are,  and  always  have  been,  than  a  hundred  friends,  or  all 
the  acquaintances  in  the  world."  Again,  on  the  i4th  of 
December  1859,  he  wrote  in  half-playful,  half-serious  mood 
to  Mrs.  Mitchell,  who  was  then  visiting  her  South  Carolina 
home.  After  a  reference  to  his  wife's  report  that  her  sister, 
Susan  Pringle,  was  charmed  with  the  little  Paris-born 
daughter,  he  continued:  "It  would  be  strange  (here's  fatherly 
vanity  for  you  !)  if  she  were  not.  I  ache  in  heart  when  I 
think  how  blind,  and  mad,  and  selfish  a  world  she  must  grow 
into;  run  off  from  us  (as  you  did),  wilt  under  some  selfish, 
quarrelsome  husband's  humors  (as  you  do),  and  bear  it  all 
with  that  sweet  womanly  devotion  and  doubled  love  (as  you 
do)."  The  sentiments  expressed  in  these  letters  only  deep 
ened  with  the  years,  as  extracts  from  his  letters  given  else 
where  in  this  biography,  sufficiently  emphasize.  In  1883 
the  graceful  rededication  of  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor — "To  one 
at  home  in  whom  are  met  so  many  of  the  graces  and  the  vir- 

338 


MARY   FRANCES   PRIXGLE. 

After  a  daguerreotype  taken  in  1850. 


HOME    LIFE 

tues  of  which  as  bachelor  I  dreamed " — confirmed  them. 
Of  all  praise,  he  valued  most  highly  that  which  came  from 
his  wife;  and  it  must  be  said  that  she  knew  how  to  praise 
heartily  and  sincerely.  "Here  I  am,"  she  wrote  from  Chi 
cago  in  1892,  "after  a  charming  journey  made  much  shorter 
by  the  re-reading  of  Dream  Life,  which  I  took  to  glance  over, 
but  read  every  word;  and  it  all  seemed  heartier  and  truer 
and  better  than  ever."  It  was  in  such  ways  that  she  en 
couraged  him  and  helped  to  banish  the  melancholy  humors 
of  his  temperament.  Hers  was,  indeed,  a  nature  of  sunshine 
and  optimism. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Edgewood,  however  shadowed  at 
times  by  circumstance,  was  always  and  essentially  a  place  of 
animation  and  cheer.  Abounding  life  made  it  so.  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Mitchell  became  the  parents  of  eleven  children — seven 
girls  and  four  boys — and  in  consequence  their  home  was  the 
centre  of  a  large  social  activity  which  radiated  a  vital  hearti 
ness.1  For  years  youth  reigned  at  Edgewood.  There  was 
"a  baby  in  the  family"  until  well  after  1875.  ^n  tne  com 
panionship  of  wife  and  children  Mr.  Mitchell  found  recom 
pense  for  his  renunciation  of  the  world.  In  such  a  home  it 
was  impossible  to  be  a  recluse.  The  head  of  so  large  a  family 
was  in  no  danger  of  becoming  unsocial. 

1  The  roll  of  the  children  follows: 

Hesse  Alston  ist,  b.  June  5th,  1854;  d.  Dec.  27th,  1861. 

Mary  Pringle,  b.  Aug.  28th,  1855;  married  Edward  L.  Ryerson,  Dec.  3d,  1879. 

Elizabeth  Woodbridge,  b.  Dec.  26th,  1856. 

Pringle,  b.  Sept.  5th,  1858;  married  Kathrin  Mower,  June  2jd,  1886;  d.  July 

2d,  190x3. 

Susan  Pringle,  b.  July  3d,  1860;  married  James  Mason  Hoppin,  Oct.  ist,  1895. 
Donald  Grant,  b.  Dec.  9th,  1861;  married  Mary  Dews  Reese,  Dec.  3d,  1889. 
Hesse  Alston  2d,  b.  Sept.  I4th,  1863. 

Rebecca  Motte,  b.  Jan.  2Oth,  1865;  married  Walter  T.  Hart,  June  3d,  1889. 
Harriet  Williams,  b.  Jan.  2Oth,  1870. 
James  Alfred,  b.  June  I4th,  1871;  d.  Jan.  2d,  1892. 
Walter  Louis,  b.  March  nth,  1875;  married  Esther  R.  Buckner,  June  2d,  1906. 

339 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

Throughout  his  life  Mr.  Mitchell  was  a  lover  of  children, 

counting  them 

better  than  all  the  ballads 
That  ever  were  sung  or  said. 

"I  never  warmed  toward  a  jewel,  except  it  were  a  child,"  he 
wrote  to  his  daughter  Susan  in  1896.  He  was  never  unmind 
ful  of  a  child's  feelings;  never  hard  or  indifferent  in  their 
presence;  he  was  always  eager  to  make  them  happy.  His 
daughters  have  told  me  a  delightful  story  of  his  old  age. 
In  1907  the  five-year-old  daughter  of  a  neighbor  was  kept  at 
Edgewood  during  her  mother's  serious  illness.  Although  en 
feebled  by  his  eighty-five  years,  Mr.  Mitchell  exerted  him 
self  to  entertain  her.  Nor  had  he  forgotten  the  ways  of 
childhood.  Recalling  how  often  promises  to  show  them  the 
richly  colored  illustrations  of  Costumes  Fran$aisl  had  pre 
vailed  upon  his  own  children  "to  be  good,"  he  took  from  the 
library  shelves  one  of  the  four  large  volumes,  and  with  the 
little  girl  upon  his  knee,  amused  her  with  stories  about  the 
attractive  pictures.  The  true  heart  of  the  man  was  in  that 
simple,  kindly  act. 

The  memory  of  his  own  sorrowful  childhood,  with  its 
brief  season  of  unbroken  home  life,  caused  him  to  put  all  the 
more  zeal  into  the  making  of  a  pleasant  environment  for  his 
children.  It  seemed  that  he  wished  them  to  have  a  double 
portion  of  all  of  which  he  had  been  deprived.  It  was  a  part 
of  his  creed  that  to  make  a  home  loved,  it  ought  to  be  lovely; 
and  he  was  convinced  that  a  home  so  made  would  become 
"the  rallying  point  of  the  household  affections  through  all 
time.  No  sea  so  distant  but  the  memory  of  a  cheery,  sun 
lit  home-room,  with  its  pictures  on  the  wall,  and  its  flame 
upon  the  hearth,  shall  haunt  the  voyager's  thought;  and  the 

1  Published  by  A.  Mifliez,  Paris,  1835. 
340 


HOME    LIFE 

flame  upon  the  hearth,  and  the  sunlit  window,  will  pave  a 
white  path  over  the  intervening  waters,  where  tenderest  fan 
cies,  like  angels  shall  come  and  go."  It  was  not  a  creed 
which  he  held  lightly.  "There  is  a  deeper  philosophy  in 
this/'  he  continued,  "than  may  at  first  sight  appear.  Who 
shall  tell  us  how  many  a  breakdown  of  a  wayward  son  is 
traceable  to  the  cheerless  aspect  of  his  own  home  and  fire 
side  P"1  In  his  opinion,  the  home  was  the  true  bulwark  of  a 
nation;  and  upon  such  belief  he  founded  all  his  notions  of 
child-training. 

Edgewood  was,  of  course,  an  almost  ideal  home  for  chil 
dren.  On  all  sides  the  book  of  nature  lay  wide  open  before 
them.  At  the  earliest  dawn  of  consciousness  beauty  con 
fronted  and  informed  their  spirits.  The  father  was  at  once 
friend,  companion,  and  teacher.  They  shared  his  walks  and 
drives;  they  absorbed  his  enthusiasms.  He  instructed  them 
in  all  country  lore,  teaching  them  the  secrets  of  the  shy,  al 
most  invisible,  life  of  the  hedgerows  and  the  coppices,  and 
searching  out  for  them  the  haunts  of  the  most  humble  wild 
things.  Under  his  guidance  they  came  to  know  the  trees, 
the  flowers,  and  the  birds,  with  a  closeness  of  observation 
acquired  only  from  such  companionship.  The  wooded  hills 
were  enchanted  regions  which  the  boys  peopled  with  knights, 
dragons,  Indians,  and  pirates;  and  in  which  the  girls  followed 
the  trail  of  the  Faerie  Queene.  Joy  and  romance  were  in  the 
very  air  they  breathed.  The  whole  expression  of  their  life 
was  natural  and  spontaneous. 

Such  joyous  freedom  was  not,  however,  without  disci 
pline;  for  Mr.  Mitchell  in  dealing  with  youth  remembered  the 
Greek  doctrine  of  nothing  in  excess.  "Flowers  and  children 
are  of  near  kin/'  he  used  to  say,  "and  too  much  of  restraint, 

1  My  Farm  of  Edgewood,  102-103. 
341 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

or  too  much  of  forcing,  or  too  much  of  display,  ruins  their 
chiefest  charms."  He  sought,  therefore,  to  balance  the 
freedom  and  abandon  of  their  outdoor  life  by  a  discipline  not 
less  firm  and  effective  because  it  was  informal  and  unob 
trusive.  Industry  was  inculcated  by  example  more  than  by 
precept.  As  soon  as  a  child  was  old  enough  to  understand 
and  enjoy,  it  was  taught  to  perform  little  tasks  as  a  part  of 
the  day's  pleasure.  Each  child  had  its  pets,  its  flowers,  or 
its  corner  in  the  garden.  There  were  no  idlers  at  Edgewood. 
Likewise,  the  children  came  to  know  the  beauty  of  simplicity 
in  dress  and  in  manners.  Ostentation  and  vulgarity  could 
not  live  in  such  an  atmosphere.  The  silent  example  of 
both  father  and  mother  revealed  how  noble  a  thing  is  mastery 
of  the  spirit.  Such  discipline  wrought  its  perfect  work- 
that  beautiful  quietness  and  order  which  became  a  dis 
tinguishing  feature  of  the  Mitchell  home. 

Mr.  Mitchell  combined  confidence  in  work  with  an  equal 
confidence  in  the  desirability  of  making  education  attractive. 
In  his  opinion,  the  virtues  of  Puritanism  were  not  dependent 
upon  the  severities  of  its  old  educational  practice,  and  he 
sought  earnestly  to  protect  youth  from  the  monotony  which 
marred  much  of  his  early  life.  He  believed  that  only  the 
blundering  stupidity  of  elders  could  quench  the  youthful 
desire  to  know.  It  was  his  custom  to  take  advantage  of  a 
child's  curiosity;  to  lure  the  eager  mind  from  one  conquest  to 
another.  By  evening  readings  he  inspired  his  children  with 
a  love  of  literature  and  history.  He  aroused  their  interest 
in  language  work  by  holding  before  them  the  hope  of  foreign 
travel.  He  secured  practice  in  composition  by  encouraging 
them  to  write  letters  and  to  edit  little  newspapers.  One  copy 
of  the  Edgewood  Times  has  been  preserved — the  work  of 
James  Alfred  when  ten  years  old.  The  heading  of  the  paper 

342 


HOME    LIFE 

was  drawn  by  the  father,  and  the  "news"  evidently  prepared 
under  his  direction.  There  was  in  this  play  no  feigning  of 
enjoyment  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Mitchell;  he  delighted  in  these 
activities.  His  enthusiasm  was  contagious,  and  the  children 
followed  his  leading  gladly. 

He  watched  with  quick,  fatherly  pride  the  development 
of  each  child,  turning,  as  it  would  seem,  with  wistful  fond 
ness  to  the  sons  of  his  old  age.  Writing  to  his  daughter 
Elizabeth  on  the  ist  of  June  1883,  m  regard  to  the  thirtieth 
anniversary  of  his  marriage,  he  remarked:  "Walter  put  his 
pocket-money  together  .  .  .  and  bought  a  clematis  for  your 
mother,  we  two  going  together  .  .  .  for  the  purchase.  He 
is  a  rare  boy — that  Walter;  he  and  James  as  generous  as  the 
skies."  He  never  failed  to  mark  traits  of  developing  char 
acter,  and  knew  well  how  to  humor  and  direct  the  eager 
spirit  of  youth.  In  a  letter  of  April  2oth,  1888,  to  his  daugh 
ter  Susan,  occur  the  following  sentences:  "Walter  is  all  agog 
with  his  high  school  entry,  beginning  with  to-day,  examina 
tion.  He's  a  bright  boy,  we  think,  and  what's  better,  has 
the  capacity  for  a  good  deal  of  dogged  work.  James  has 
been  figuring  at  the  balls  which  close  up  the  high  school  term, 
and  is  quite  the  leader  of  ton  in  our  household.  My  authority 
in  cravats  has  lapsed." 

As  the  young  people  grew  toward  manhood  and  woman 
hood,  Mr.  Mitchell  identified  himself  more  and  more  closely 
with  their  interests  and  activities.  He  taught  them  to  make 
much  of  holidays  and  birthday  anniversaries,  emphasizing 
the  fact  that  little,  inexpensive  gifts  could  often  carry  with 
them  more  of  suggestion  and  affectionate  remembrance  than 
gifts  more  ostentatious  and  costly.  Often  he  would  send  to 
an  absent  child  one  of  his  own  drawings  of  a  favorite  bit  of 
Edgewood  scenery,  or  of  a  family  pet,  or  of  whatever  else 

343 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

he  thought  would  kindle  home  memories  and  affections.  Be 
yond  all  else  he  was  careful  to  write  frequent  and  cheery 
letters  to  those  who  had  gone  out  from  the  home  circle  to 
establish  firesides  of  their  own,  and  struggle  to  make  a  place 
for  themselves  in  the  world.  Indeed,  his  practice  in  this 
respect  was  in  keeping  with  a  lifelong  conviction.  "Letter 
writing  is  a  home  office  to  cultivate,"  he  always  maintained. 
"Write  letters,  and  you  will  find  them  all  through  life,  de 
lightful,  airy  windows  opening  out  upon  other  spheres,  and 
bringing  sweet  voices  to  your  table  and  your  hearth,  giving 
new  quality  to  home  cheer  and  home  talk  by  their  contrasts, 
and  opening  with  the  postman's  knock  breezy  corridors 
through  which  troops  of  friends  may  trip  to  give  you  greet 
ing,  and  electrify  you  by  spiritual  contact."  No  child  of 
his  but  had  abundant  reason  to  feel  thankful  for  such  teach 
ing  and  such  practice.  On  many  occasions  joys  were  height 
ened,  gloom  was  dispelled,  and  sorrows  were  alleviated  by  the 
letters  which  the  father  seemed  never  too  busy,  too  weary,  or 
too  old  to  write. 

He  lived  to  become  the  companion  of  a  merry  group  of 
grandchildren.  With  them  he  roamed  again  the  Edgewood 
ways,  and  taught  once  more  to  eager  youth  the  secrets  of  the 
outdoor  world.  In  the  companionship  of  little  children  he 
kept  his  spirit  bright  and  his  senses  alert.  For  many  years 
the  Ryerson  children  journeyed  from  Chicago  to  spend  their 
summers  at  Edgewood.  In  the  presence  of  their  grandfather 
they  came  to  know  the  beauty  and  the  wisdom  of  a  quiet, 
simple  life.  To-day  they  hold  the  memories  of  Edgewood  as 
among  the  richest  of  their  lives,  and  count  the  influence  of 
their  grandfather's  life  as  one  of  the  most  potent  forces  in  the 
shaping  of  their  character.  Younger  than  the  Ryersons  were 
the  Hart  grandchildren,  and  the  sons  and  daughters  of  Don- 

344 


HOME    LIFE 

aid  G.  Mitchell,  Jr.,  who  were  also  privileged  for  a  time  to 
know  their  grandfather  and  to  experience  the  warmth  of  his 
affection  for  children.  He  often  entertained  them  at  Edge- 
wood.  As  soon  as  they  were  old  enough  to  write,  he  began  to 
exchange  letters  with  them.  He  understood  that  most  diffi 
cult  art  of  writing  in  a  manner  that  will  at  once  attract  and 
uplift  a  child.  "That  was  a  jolly  fine  letter  you  sent  me 
about  the  ice-cave,  and  the  Cobble  Hill!"  he  wrote  to  the 
nine-year-old  Philip  Hart,  July  I5th,  1903.  "And  did  you 
see  any  bear  tracks,  or  hear  any  growling  ?  They  tell  me  you 
have  grown  stouter  than  ever;  and  that  you  have  grown  good, 
too — which  is  much  better;  and  that  you  look  out  for  the 
enjoyment  of  other  boys  and  girls,  as  well  as  your  own— 
which  is  one  of  the  best  ways  of  growing  good,  and  of  making 
friends!" 

He  had  the  Scotch  love  for  home  and  kindred,  and  as  he 
grew  older  perhaps  regretted  those  currents  of  American  life 
which  carry  children  far  from  the  scenes  of  their  youth.  He 
had  a  strong  affection  for  ancestral  place.  To  his  son  Don 
ald  he  wrote,  December  29th,  1905:  "I  am  glad  to  see  that 
Don  jd  has  taken  his  initiatory  drive  into  the  Salem  wilds 
.  .  .  and  hope  he  will  come  to  love  familiarity  with  Salem 
scenes  and  people.  Glad  that  you  have  found  the  way  to 
the  old  Shaw  house,  and  its  gardens.1  Cousin  Jane  is  a  good, 
kindly  person,  and  I  am  sure  will  welcome  your  children's 
visitations  to  the  old  summer  house,  about  which  some  of  my 
pleasantest  boyish  recollections  (1834-38)  cluster.  I  like 
to  think  of  your  boy  growing  up  in  sight  of  the  same  old 
scenes."  Long  before  (September  1888)  he  had  written  to 
his  daughter  Elizabeth:  "I'm  glad  you've  been  to  Salem. 
My  heart  warms  to  anybody  who  will  make  a  pilgrimage 

1  Now  the  home  of  the  New  London  Historical  Society. 

345 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

there.  ...  I  can't  quite  explain  my  feeling  for  that  valley 
out  in  the  wilds.  ...  I  wouldn't  like  to  live  there,  but 
there's  never  a  summer  breeze  can  blow  up  the  valley  and 
the  brook  (of  which  I  get  any  hearing  at  all)  but  it's  musical 
to  me.  I  had  some  good  times  there  at  a  very  impressiona 
ble  age;  and  then  the  'ancestral'  twang  about  it,  coming  from 
the  white  house  on  the  hill,  and  the  tomb-stones,  sharpens  the 
'good  old  times'  feeling,  and  clinches  it."  In  quite  the  same 
spirit  is  the  dedication  to  the  young  Ryersons  of  the  second 
volume  of  American  Lands  and  Letters  (1899):  "To  the  little 
group  of  grandchildren  born  and  bred  upon  the  shores  of  that 
great  lake  where  they  build  cities  and  burn  them,  and  build 
exhibition  palaces  which  outshine  all  exhibits,  I  dedicate  this 
second  volume  of  American  talks,  trusting  it  may  find  a  kind 
ly  reading  in  their  hustling  western  world,  and  spur  them  to 
keep  alive  that  trail  of  home  journeyings  into  these  eastern 
quietudes  under  the  trees  which  we  gray  heads  love." 

Mr.  Mitchell  had,  in  fact,  so  identified  himself  with  the 
spirit  of  rural  Connecticut  that  a  subtle  sympathy  existed 
between  him  and  the  very  soil  from  which  he  drew  suste 
nance.  He  was  rooted  as  deep  among  "eastern  quietudes" 
as  were  the  trees  which  shaded  his  roof.  He  had  found  con 
tentment.  For  him  Edgewood  symbolized  peace,  comfort, 
seclusion.  There  he  could  indulge  his  idiosyncrasies;  there 
he  could  be  himself.  To  understand  him  aright,  we  must 
know  something  of  his  private  home  life. 

Edgewood  ministered  to  Mr.  Mitchell's  passion  for  soli 
tude.  At  first  sight,  he  had  been  strongly  attracted  to  the 
farm  by  its  comparative  isolation.  Behind  his  hedges  he 
felt  that  unobserved  he  could  go  his  own  way  in  peace,  and 
steep  his  soul  in  quiet.  Even  in  such  a  home,  however,  he 
craved  further  seclusion,  and  knew  seasons  when  he  found  it 

346 


HOME    LIFE 

necessary  to  withdraw  from  the  immediate  presence  of  his 
family.  At  such  times  the  library  was  his  sure  retreat. 
There,  among  his  books,  and  in  communion  with  his  own 
spirit,  he  was  accustomed  to  remain  until  he  had  "consumed 
his  smoke,"  overcome  the  melancholy  that  oppressed  him, 
and  strengthened  himself  for  fresh  contact  with  people. 
When  he  built  the  new  house  he  planned  the  library  for  quiet 
and  seclusion,  taking  especial  care  to  arrange  in  such  way  as 
to  avoid  callers  when  he  felt  so  inclined.  Through  a  window 
looking  out  upon  the  front  walk  and  the  main  entrance  of 
Edgewood  he  could  see  callers  before  they  reached  the  house. 
He  even  planned  for  those  emergencies  when  a  ring  of  the 
door-bell  surprised  him.  The  entrance  to  the  library  is 
around  the  right  corner  of  the  long  hallway.  Another  li 
brary  door  gives  access  to  a  side  exit  opening  upon  a  walk 
which  leads  to  the  hill  at  the  rear.  Such  arrangement  made 
it  possible  for  him  to  leave  the  library  before  his  presence 
there  could  be  ascertained.  Many  a  time  his  children  were 
amused  to  hear  the  side-door  close  even  before  the  bell  rang. 
They  knew  that  a  caller  was  coming,  and  that  their  father 
was  on  his  way  to  the  hill  to  wander  under  the  trees  until  the 
visitor  had  departed. 

During  Mr.  Mitchell's  life  his  library  remained  almost 
exactly  as  he  described  it  in  1876: 

The  walls  are  finished  roughly  with  ordinary  mortar  floated  off 
and  colored  a  dark  red.  The  cornice  is  of  pine,  with  a  beading  of 
black  walnut,  extending  around  upon  the  book-shelves  as  well  as 
upon  portions  of  the  wall.  For  economy  of  space,  the  book-shelves 
reach  to  ceiling,  and  are  also  established  in  either  blank  of  chimney- 
breast  which  extends  into  room.  I  find  these  last  specially  con 
venient,  and  their  position  has  enabled  me  to  give  greater  apparent 
breadth  to  chimney  and  greater  actual  breadth  to  mantel-piece. 

347 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

The  floor  has  a  border  of  yellow  pine  and  black  walnut,  mitred 
at  angles,  almost  two  feet  wide.  The  enclosed  space,  floored  with 
ordinary  white  pine,  is  covered  with  English  Brussels  carpet  of  a 
simple  geometric  pattern,  quite  small,  the  colors  being  mainly 
brown  or  fawn-color  with  bits  of  black,  white,  or  yellow.  The 
carpet  has  a  border  of  same  predominating  color,  and  broad  band 
of  green.  An  old  Turkey  rug  is  before  the  fire-place. 

The  library  of  2,500  to  3,000  volumes,  is  quite  miscellaneous, 
being  fullest  in  mediaeval  history,  encyclopaedias  and  dictionaries, 
and  works  relating  to  art  and  agriculture.  The  ceiling  is  of  bald 
gray  mortar,  only  because  I  cannot  afford  to  decorate  it.  The 
wood-work  is  almost  entirely  of  white  pine,  to  which  effect  has 
been  given  by  variety  of  stain  (in  no  case  obscuring  the  grain  of 
wood),  by  bits  of  tile,  and  by  sparse  use  of  paper-hanging.  If  I 
had  not  so  many  windows,  I  should  have  given  the  walls  a  lighter 
tint;  and  if  I  had  not  so  little  space,  I  should  not  have  carried  the 
bookshelves  to  the  ceiling;  in  short,  if  I  could  have  spent  more 
money,  I  would  have  made  a  more  noticeable  room.1 

During  the  forenoon  the  library,  which  faces  the  east,  is 
filled  with  sunlight.  The  large  eastern  windows  look  out 
upon  the  flowers,  the  trees,  the  lawn,  and  the  hedges  which 
surround  Edgewood,  and  the  spires  of  New  Haven  rising  in 
the  distance.  Between  the  windows  is  a  rustic  bracket  in 
which  are  small  busts  of  Gutenberg,  Shakespeare,  and  Vol 
taire,  the  memorials  of  European  wanderings.  In  Mr. 
Mitcheirs  day  vines  clambered  over  this  casement-bracket, 
and  two  large  boxes  of  flowers  occupied  the  windows.  These 
boxes  bore  favorite  quotations  from  Shakespeare's  Cymbe- 
line:  the  one,  "Fairest  flowers  whilst  summer  lasts";  the 
other,  "Furr'd  moss  besides,  when  flowers  are  none."  As  he 
sat  within,  Mr.  Mitchell  could  look  about  him  with  the  pride 

1  The  Book  of  American  Interiors.     By  Charles  Wyllys  Elliott,  pp.  76-79. 

348 


HOME    LIFE 

of  a  creator;  for  all  was  the  product  of  his  brain.  He  knew 
every  book.  He  had  chosen  each  picture,  each  bit  of  bric-a- 
brac,  and  loved  the  wealth  of  suggestion  surrounding  each. 
Every  summer  day  a  vase  of  rare  design  and  interesting  his 
tory  held  a  new  flower — the  trophy  of  a  morning  walk. 
Throughout  the  winter  the  windows  were  ablaze  with  favor 
ite  flowers.  The  whole  room  was  a  treasury  of  beauty,  of 
wisdom,  and  of  memory. 

As  soon  as  the  sun  crossed  the  meridian  the  shadows  be 
gan  to  gather  within  the  library.  "Edgewood  has  no  sun 
set,"  a  visitor  once  ventured  to  remark  to  Mr.  Mitchell. 
"No,  but  it  has  a  sunrise.  Isn't  that  enough  ?"  he  replied 
rather  sharply;  and  his  reply  was  revealing.  For  him,  as  we 
know,  sunshine  and  gloom  followed  close  upon  each  other, 
and  it  is  doubtless  true  that  he  loved  neither  one  nor  the 
other  overmuch;  but  rather  loved  the  alternation  of  both. 
A  sun-filled  room  brought  cheer  to  a  morning  of  work;  a 
shadow-haunted  room  brought  reveries  and  dreams  to  long 
afternoons  and  evenings.  When  the  time  for  fires  came  he 
found  the  shadowed  afternoons  especially  attractive.  The 
play  of  the  firelight  on  the  walls  and  over  the  books  awak 
ened  fancies  that  he  would  not  have  exchanged  for  kingdoms. 
He  could  not  explain  the  charm  which  a  fireplace  exercised 
upon  him;  he  could  only  enjoy  it.  A  wood-fire,  an  open 
hearth,  a  cheery  blaze,  flickering  shadows,  dreams — these  he 
loved;  these  he  would  not  forego.  At  Edgewood  there  was 
abundance  of  timber,  and  the  wood-shed  was  always  filled. 
"The  days  of  wood-fires  are  not  utterly  gone;  as  long  as  I 
live,  they  never  will  be  gone,"  he  once  declared.1 

Now  and  then  a  visitor  was  privileged  to  sit  with  Mr. 
Mitchell  in  the  light  of  his  open  fire,  and  to  catch  something 

1  My  Farm  of  Edgewood,  u. 
349 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

of  his  spirit's  fineness.  "I  am  living  a  quiet  life,  one  might 
call  it  a  life  of  seclusion,"  he  once  confided  to  a  caller.  "My 
companions  at  present  are  the  open  grate,  the  embers,  the 
birch,  which  does  not  snap  sparks  on  the  rug,  contentment  of 
mind  and  body."  One  was  not  likely  ever  to  forget  the  play 
of  the  firelight  over  Mr.  Mitchell's  features,  nor  the  warm 
rose-tint  with  which  it  suffused  his  snow-white  hair.  From 
his  countenance  nobility  and  benevolence  shone  out  clearly. 
"It  is  such  a  face,"  a  visitor  once  remarked,  "as  one's  fancy 
ascribes  to  that  good  man,  the  Bishop  of  D  —  in  Les  Misera- 


I  have  already  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  when 
awake  Mr.  Mitchell  was  never  idle.  Among  the  hobbies 
with  which  he  occupied  himself,  the  manufacture  of  rustic 
woodwork,  map-making,  and  drawing  in  colors  were  chief. 
There  are  at  Edgewood  rustic  picture-frames,  clocks,  cab 
inets,  canes,  and  ornaments,  many  of  which  he  wrought 
out  when  confined  to  his  bed  with  illness.  He  strove  to 
teach  his  children  to  recognize  the  kinds  of  wood  best  suited 
to  rustic  work,  and  often  sent  them  on  trial  errands  to  gather 
material.  At  such  times,  any  display  of  ignorance  on  their 
part  quickly  aroused  his  impatience.  "What!"  he  once 
exclaimed,  "none  of  you  know  bass-wood!  After  all  my 
teaching,  is  it  possible  that  a  child  of  mine  does  not  know 
bass  ?"  Map-making  was  one  of  his  greatest  delights,  and 
he  always  expressed  the  belief  that  in  him  a  good  cartog 
rapher  was  lost  to  the  world  for  lack  of  early  and  skilled 
instruction  in  the  art.  Once  when  reading  Ruskin's  asser 
tion  in  Time  and  Tide  that  "every  youth  in  the  state  should 
learn  to  do  something  finely  and  thoroughly  with  his  hand," 
Mr.  Mitchell  made  the  regretful  annotation,  "I  might  have 
been  taught  to  make  maps  !"  On  his  library  door  there  yet 

350 


HOME    LIFE 

hangs  a  specimen  of  his  handiwork  in  cartography — a  large 
map  of  Edgewood  and  the  surrounding  country,  upon  which 
are  located  the  minutest  features  of  the  landscape,  including 
even  the  places  where  mushrooms  flourish  best.  Although 
painting  ministered  to  his  delight  in  form  and  color,  he  never 
valued  his  accomplishment  in  it  so  highly  as  that  in  his  other 
hobbies.  Many  of  his  drawings  in  color  are  preserved  at 
Edgewood,  and  two  of  his  water-color  sketches  are  repro 
duced  in  Chronicles  of  a  Connecticut  Farm. 

Pets  abounded  at  Edgewood.  The  household  was  never 
without  its  favorite  dog;  cats  found  warm  welcome  there; 
and  all  the  farm  animals  came  to  gentle  and  affectionate 
treatment.  Mr.  Mitchell  doubtless  learned  to  love  most  of 
all  a  horse  which  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ryerson  gave  him  in  1890. 
No  member  of  the  family  circle  is  likely  ever  to  forget 
"Andy"  and  his  clever  ways.  In  a  series  of  notes  Mr. 
Mitchell  has  recorded  something  of  his  affection  for  this 
faithful  companion: 

The  other  day  we  left  him  in  East  Haven  for  a  night.  It 
galled  us  to  do  it.  Would  he  be  well  cared  for?  Would  not  some 
slattern  or  heedless  groom  offend  his  sensibilities?  Would  he  sleep 
well  in  a  strange  stall?  Would  he  have  good  companionship  over 
the  stall  partitions?  Would  the  hay  be  smoky?  Would  his  ra 
tions  be  regular  and  fair?  All  this  disturbed  us.  Why  should  it 
not?  I  gave  him  occasion  to  rub  his  nose  on  my  shoulder  before 
parting  with  him,  patted  him  on  the  neck,  and  gave  him  a  bonne 
bouche  of  a  lump  of  sugar,  which  he  crunched  in  a  lively  and  grate 
ful  way  as  I  came  out  of  the  stable-yard. 

Those  baitings  by  the  high  road  with  which  some  of  the  more 
starched  members  of  the  family  are  disposed  to  quarrel,  are  not 
without  their  defences,  their  beguilements,  and  their  essentially 
good  philosophic  and  physiologic  ends.  For  my  own  part,  I  have 

351 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

no  liking  for  those  long  country  rides  or  drives  which  do  not  permit 
of  a  "getting  out"  here  and  there  for  the  plucking  of  this  or  that 
flower,  for  the  random  survey  of  this  or  that  wood.  It  puts  the  last 
rural  grace  into  a  country  ramble;  it  relieves  of  ennui;  it  breaks  the 
monotony;  it  opens  skyward  and  earthward  loop-holes  for  pleasant 
disport.  So,  I  am  sure  my  good  Andy  has  a  relishy  enjoyment  of 
those  little  bites  by  the  road-side — now  of  tall  lucerne,  now  of  a 
luscious  mat  of  white  clover,  now  of  the  speary,  nodding  heads  of 
the  twitch-grass  (for  which  I  observe  he  has  always  peculiar  ap 
petite),  and  again  for  a  catch-all  bite  of  wild  wood-grass,  five-fin 
gers,  young  golden-rod,  even  bringing  up  the  roots  with  their  at 
tached  morsels  of  fragrant  wood-soil,  humus,  silex,  aluminum,  and 
all  the  rest,  which  chemical  multiple  of  condiments  he  consumes 
with  a  grateful  click-clack  of  his  jaws. 

Then  came  this  finale.  I  do  not  know  how  the  veterinary 
scientists  would  term  it,  or  disguise  it,  in  Latin;  but  there  came 
indications — sometimes  after  sharp  going,  sometimes  without 
apparent  provoking  cause — of  a  poor  government  of  the  muscular 
tissues,  an  occasional  tremor  in  them  running  over  flank  and  thigh, 
and  at  last  one  day  an  involuntary,  spasmodic,  uncontrollable  back 
ing  .  .  .  a  crouching,  uncanny  shivering  and  shrinking  of  all  hinder 
parts  till  he  sunk  flattened  out  upon  the  ground.  'T  would  seem 
shafts  or  breeching  would  all  have  given  way.  But  they  kept  whole, 
and  he,  poor  fellow,  shamed  and  righted  and  ballasted  as  it  were 
by  that  touch  to  mother  earth,  rose  up  with  a  great  shiver  of  re 
solve.  ...  [A  few  days  later]  we  found  him  doubled  up  in  his 
box  quite  stark  and  cold,  with  his  head  stretched  out  upon  his 
knees  as  if  asking  relief.  .  .  .  And  shall  we  ever  see  him,  or  recog 
nize  something  that  will  seem  identical  with  that  gentle,  intelligent 
eye  of  his,  when  this  life  is  ended,  and  another,  somewhere  in  other 
realms  begun  ?  I  can  name  a  dozen  men  whom  I  have  encountered 
within  ten  days  past,  who  are  not  half  so  worthy  of  living  again, 
and  of  renewing  old  acquaintanceships,  as  this  gentle,  swift,  en 
gaging  Andy. 

352 


HOME    LIFE 

Readers  of  My  Farm  of  Edgewood  will  recall  that  in  the 
book  Mr.  Mitchell  speaks1  of  "  a  class  of  men  who  gravitate  to 
the  country  by  a  pure  necessity  of  their  nature,"  who  "linger 
by  florists'  doors,  drawn  and  held  by  a  magnetism  they  can 
not  explain,  and  which  they  make  no  effort  to  resist.  ...  I 
think  they  are  apt  to  be  passionate  lovers  of  only  a  few,  and 
those  the  commonest  flowers — flowers  whose  sweet  home- 
names  reach  a  key,  at  whose  touch  all  their  sympathies 
respond.  They  laugh  at  the  florists'  fondness  for  a  well- 
rounded  hollyhock,  or  a  true  petalled  tulip,  and  admire  as 
fondly  the  half-developed  specimens,  the  careless  growth  of 
cast-away  plants,  or  the  accidental  thrust  of  some  misshapen 
bud  or  bulb."  His  friends  scarcely  need  the  further  sentence, 
"I  suspect  I  am  to  be  ranked  with  these,"  to  assure  them  that 
he  is  speaking  of  himself. 

No  tyranny  of  fashion  ever  dictated  the  choice  of  flowers 
at  Edgewood,  or  determined  the  system  of  planting.  Mr. 
Mitchell's  own  tastes — his  whimsies,  if  you  will — governed 
these  matters.  "I  sometimes  wander  through  the  elegant 
gardens  of  my  town  friends,"  he  wrote,  "fairly  dazzled  by  all 
the  splendor  and  the  orderly  ranks  of  beauties;  but  nine 
times  in  ten — if  I  do  not  guard  my  tongue  with  a  prudent 
reticence,  and  allow  my  admiration  to  ooze  out  only  in  ex 
clamations — I  mortify  the  gardener  by  admiring  some  timid 
flower,  which  nestles  under  cover  of  the  flaunting  dahlias  or 
peonies,  and  which  proves  to  be  only  some  dainty  weed,  or  an 
antiquated  plant,  which  the  florists  no  longer  catalogue. 
Everybody  knows  how  ridiculous  it  is  to  admire  a  picture  by 
an  unknown  artist;  and  I  must  confess  to  feeling  the  fear  of  a 
kindred  ridicule,  whenever  I  stroll  through  the  gardens  of  an 
accomplished  amateur.  But  I  console  myself  with  thinking 

1  See  pp.  332-333  ff- 
353 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

that  I  have  company  in  my  mal-adroitness,  and  that  there  is 
a  great  crowd  of  people  in  the  world,  who  admire  spontane 
ously  what  seems  to  be  beautiful,  without  waiting  for  the 
story  of  its  beauty.  If  I  were  an  adept,  I  should  doubtless, 
like  other  adepts,  reserve  my  admiration  exclusively  for 
floral  perfection;  but  I  thank  God  that  my  eye  is  not  as  yet 
so  bounded.  The  blazing  daffodils,  blue-bells,  English  cow 
slips,  and  striped-grass,  with  which  some  painstaking  woman 
in  an  up-country  niche  of  home,  spots  her  little  door-yard  in 
April,  have  won  upon  me  before  now  to  a  tender  recognition 
of  the  true  mission  of  flowers,  as  no  gorgeous  parterre  could 
do.  With  such  heretical  views,  the  reader  will  not  be  sur 
prised  if  I  have  praises  and  a  weakness  for  the  commonest 
of  flowers."  1 

He  counted  it  pure  joy  to  search  out  the  haunts  of  wild 
flowers.  What  he  wrote  of  his  brother  Louis  was  equally 
true  of  himself.  "He  greeted  every  token  of  coming  spring 
with  glee;  he  delighted  in  watching  the  buds  as  they  unfolded; 
over  and  over,  I  remember  his  loitering  for  hours  in  sunny 
May  days  under  the  near  woods,  exploring  with  his  cane 
amongst  the  dead  leaves  for  the  anemones  and  the  hepaticas. 
No  gift  was  ever  more  acceptable  to  him  than  a  handful  of 
the  first-blooming  arbutus." 

It  is  in  scattered  and  unexpected  places  that  I  like  my  children 
to  ferret  out  the  wild-flowers  brought  down  from  the  woods — the 
frail  columbine  in  its  own  cleft  of  rock — the  wild-turnip,  with  its 
quaint  green  flower  in  some  dark  nook  that  is  like  its  home  in  the 
forest — the  maiden's-hair  thriving  in  the  moist  shadow  of  rocks; 
and  among  these  transplanted  wild  ones  of  the  flower-fold,  I  like 
to  drop  such  modest  citizens  of  the  tame  country  as  a  tuft  of  vio 
lets,  or  a  green  phalanx  of  the  bristling  lilies  of  the  valley. 

1  My  Farm  of  Edgewood,  338-339.      In  the  same  volume  read  Mr.  Mitchell's 
account  of  his  purchasing  a  field-daisy  in  Paris,  pp.  138-139. 

354 


HOME    LIFE 

Year  by  year,  as  we  loiter  among  them,  after  the  flowering  sea 
son  is  over,  we  change  their  habitat^  from  a  shade  that  has  grown  too 
dense,  to  some  summer  bay  of  the  coppices;  and  with  the  next  year 
of  bloom,  the  little  ones  come  in  with  marvelous  reports  of  lilies, 
where  lilies  were  never  seen  before — or  of  fragrant  violets,  all  in 
flower,  upon  the  farthest  skirt  of  the  hill-side.  It  is  very  absurd,  of 
course;  but  I  think  I  enjoy  this  more — and  the  rare  intelligence 
which  the  little  ones  bring  in  with  their  flashing,  eager  eyes — than 
if  the  most  gentlemanly  gardener  from  Thorburn's  were  to  show  a 
dahlia  with  petals  as  regular  as  if  they  were  notched  by  the  file  of  a 
sawyer.1 

The  frailty,  the  gentleness,  and  the  unassuming  beauty 
of  certain  wild  flowers  brought  his  soul  into  communion  and 
harmony  with  God,  and  thus  satisfied  some  deep  need  of  his 
spirit.  He,  at  least,  never  hesitated  to  associate  his  religion 
and  his  love  of  flowers.  "Re[becca]  and  I  took  our  sermon 
and  services  in  the  woods,"  he  wrote  to  Elizabeth,  April 
2jd,  1888,  "and  brought  home  five  or  six  full-blown  blood- 
roots,  four  nearly  opened  buds  of  dog-tooth  violets  (yellow), 
and  a  stock  of  brilliant  hepaticas  of  all  tints  (I  never  saw 
them  more  beautiful)."  Again,  on  the  i4th  of  May  1888,  he 
reported  to  Elizabeth  the  result  of  another  Sunday  flower- 
hunt.  "We  picked  (Hesse  and  I)  yesterday,  polygola  for 
first  time;  also  columbines  in  full  bloom,  oceans  of  large 
anemones,  and  bird's-foot  violets  in  greater  profusion  than  I 
ever  found  them." 

His  children  tell  me  that  in  many  cases  personal  associa 
tions  determined  his  choice  of  flowers;  that  he  loved  especially 
those  with  which  he  became  acquainted  in  boyhood  and 
youth.  "Take  it  away  !  Take  it  away  !"  he  once  cried  out 
impatiently  when  a  flower  was  brought  to  him.  "I  never 

1  My  Farm  of  Edgewood,  341-342. 

355 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

knew  it  when  I  was  a  boy.  It  has  no  associations  for  me." 
And  he  waved  it  from  him  with  a  deprecatory  motion  of  his 
hands.  Miss  Elizabeth  Mitchell  informs  me  that  very  often 
she  was  able  to  divert  her  father's  mind  from  the  deepest 
griefs  by  calling  his  attention  to  varieties  of  wild  orchids 
which  he  had  learned  to  love  in  his  boyhood. 

Very  early  in  his  life  among  them,  the  people  of  New 
Haven  came  to  understand  something  of  Mr.  Mitchell's 
modesty,  but  only  the  members  of  his  family  knew  how  genu 
ine  was  this  quality  of  his  nature,  and  in  how  many  ways  it 
manifested  itself.  He  seemed  to  have  absorbed  something 
of  the  shyness  and  humility  of  his  favorite  wild  flowers.  He 
always  shrank  from  putting  himself  forward,  and  never 
ceased  to  have  a  dread  of  public  performance.  His  wife 
came  to  early  knowledge  of  this  characteristic  during  their 
voyage  to  Europe  in  1853  when  he  refused  to  respond  to  a 
request  for  an  after-dinner  speech  on  board  the  Arctic. 
Subsequent  experience  convinced  her  that  he  could  not  be 
lionized,  and  both  she  and  the  children  were  often  amused  by 
the  shifts  to  which  he  was  driven  to  escape  public  notice.  His 
family  enjoyed  the  report  of  his  experience  during  his  voyage 
to  Europe  on  the  City  of  Berlin  in  May  1878.  "The  concert," 
he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Mitchell  on  May  nth,  "is  to  come  off  to 
night.  They  have  been  at  me  again  to  read  something,  to  say 
something,  to  make  some  show.  If  none  of  them  had  known 
of  my  having  written  somewhat,  I  should  have  got  off 
quietly  and  undisturbedly.  It  comes  of  writing  Donald  G., 
instead  of  Mr.  Mitchell.  Well,  I  shall  get  quit  if  I  can,  but 
I  don't  know  how  I  shall  be  able  to  escape."  A  few  hours 
later  he  continued:  "Well,  the  concert  came  off,  the  salon 
jammed  with  400  people,  including  sixty  performers,  and  in 
the  very  middle  of  it,  what  does  .  .  .  the  chairman  [do  but] 

356 


HOME    LIFE 

break  out  in  a  gas-y  jumble  about  a  distinguished  author  on 
board — well  known — charming  style — etc.,  etc.,  and  ended 
up  by  calling  me  out  by  both  names.  ...  I  was  wedged  in 
between  an  English  lady  and  a  German  merchant,  outside 
my  usual  place;  but  they  spotted  me,  and  I  had  to  come  out. 
I  had  a  copy  of  Tennyson  in  my  pocket,  thinking  if  worst 
came  I  would  get  off  by  reading  'Lady  Clara  Vere  de  Vere,' 
and  trying  to  fancy  I  was  reading  it  to  the  children  at  home. 
So  I  began  with  apologizing  for  the  impertinence  of  appear 
ing  at  all  in  the  midst  of  a  concert,  and  ran  on — better  than 
I  thought  I  could — complimenting  the  band,  the  ship,  the 
captain,  and  finally  Miss  [Emma]  Thursby  [a  well-known 
singer  of  that  day],  in  a  way  that  brought  down  the  house. 
So  I  came  off  easily  and  without  any  reading  at  all." 

He  was  in  Paris  when  he  received  the  announcement  that 
Yale  had  conferred  upon  him  the  LL.D.  degree.  On  the 
1 2th  of  July  1878  he  wrote  to  his  wife:  "Two  days  ago  came 
Lizzy's  announcement  of  the  doctorate.  'Twas  a  very  fool 
ish  thing  for  the  College  to  do  (begging  their  pardon),  and 
all  I  can  say  in  extenuation  is,  that  they  have  frequently 
done  as  bad  things.  Don't  you  ever  dare  to  write  LL.D.  in 
connection  with  my  name !  Huntington  and  I  have  had  a 
good  laugh  over  it;  and  as  evidence  of  kindly  feeling,  and 
testimony  to  general  sobriety  of  conduct,  it  is  pleasant." 

He  disliked  to  hear  reference  to  his  own  books,  shrinking 
from  mention  of  them  as  though  he  were  pained.  He  always 
placed  copies  of  his  own  volumes  upon  inconspicuous 
shelves  of  the  library  to  the  left  of  the  fireplace  chimney 
where  the  light  was  so  poor  as  almost  entirely  to  conceal  them 
from  sight.  A  similar  feeling  made  him  shrink  from  inter 
views.  He  greeted  a  friend  who  once  came  to  interview  him 
with  the  remark:  "Well,  I  am  sorry  to  say  I  dread  your  call 

357 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

as  much  as  I  would  that  of  a  kindly  disposed  dentist."  To  a 
young  woman  who  begged  to  see  him  that  she  might  have  the 
opportunity  of  "writing  him  up,"  he  replied:  "If  you  had 
asked  permission  to  come  into  the  Edgewood  garden  and 
pluck  at  your  will  the  ripe  raspberries  (which  are  now  lus 
cious  and  abundant),  I  would  have  given  you  neighborly 
courtesy,  and  my  heartiest  permission.  But — if  you  come 
with  note-book  and  pencil  to  piece  out  a  page  of  those  per 
sonalities  of  which  so  many  journals  are  now  drearily  full, 
I  can  give  you  only  scantest  welcome.  I  have  commissioned 
my  daughter  to  say  as  much  to  you;  and  I  hope  she  will  do  it 
with  as  much  peremptoriness,  and  with  a  much  larger  gra- 
ciousness."  It  was  almost  impossible  to  lure  such  a  man  into 
public  view.  In  1895  he  was  asked  to  accept  the  presidency 
of  the  American  Authors'  Guild,  and  assured  that  his  "only 
duties  would  be  to  preside  when  convenient,  at  eight  monthly 
meetings."  Of  course  he  declined.  On  the  back  of  the  invi 
tation  appears  the  following  note  in  Mr.  Mitchell's  hand: 
"Letter  suggesting  that  I  fill  the  place;  but  quite  unsuited  to 
my  tastes  and  habits.  Hard  enough  to  preside  at  my  own 
table!"  In  1889  he  wrote  to  Elizabeth:  "I  want  an  en 
gagement  beginning  May  5th  and  ending  May  I2th,  as  far 
away  from  home  as  possible,  to  avoid  an  AA<f>  convention. 
Doesn't  A[lfred]  want  to  send  a  messenger  boy  (ce.  67)  to 
Jacksonville,  or  Birmingham,  or  Kansas,  or  Brunswick,  or 
Salem  ?  ' Best  of  references  ! '" 

Mr.  Mitchell's  shyness  was  combined  with  a  rare  humor 
which  brightened  his  own  life,  and  the  lives  of  all  with  whom 
he  came  in  contact.  It  counteracted  his  morbid  tendencies 
and  helped  him  to  take  a  healthy  view  of  life.  At  home  he 
was  not  incapable  of  piquant  criticism,  which  spared  neither 
friend  nor  relative.  Like  Carlyle,  he  enjoyed  the  trenchant 

358 


HOME    LIFE 

wit  of  his  own  comments.  Such  criticism,  however,  indulged 
in  half  for  amusement,  was  not  intended  for  the  public,  and 
he  would  have  been  greatly  pained  to  know  that  any  of  it 
had  gone  beyond  the  family  circle.  There  was  delightful 
repartee  in  the  home  conversation,  and  a  keen  relish  of  jokes 
at  the  expense  of  members  of  the  household.  He  could  even 
relish  a  good  joke  at  his  own  expense. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  Mr.  Mitchell  professed 
great  dislike  of  sitting  for  a  photograph  or  a  painting,  his 
family  suspected  that  he  was  not  nearly  so  averse  to  portrai 
ture  as  he  seemed.  They  even  ventured  to  believe  that  he 
was  rather  fond  of  securing  good  likenesses  of  himself,  and 
they  enjoyed  the  air  of  martyrdom  with  which  he  endured 
the  sittings  now  and  then  required  of  him.  His  son-in-law, 
Mr.  Edward  L.  Ryerson,  half  convinced  that  too  good  a 
likeness  made  Mr.  Mitchell  vain,  arranged  in  1901  with  Gari 
Melchers  to  paint  a  portrait  that  would  be  emphatically 
representative  of  age.  When  the  artist  had  finished,  Mr. 
Mitchell  turned  to  his  son-in-law  with  the  question:  "Do  you 
like  it,  Ned  ?"  "Yes,"  was  the  mischievous  reply,  "I  think 
it's  very  like  you."  "Well,"  Mr.  Mitchell  responded 
promptly,  "I  hope  I  shall  live  long  enough  to  look  like  it." 
Upon  an  earlier  (1899)  portrait  by  G.  A.  Thompson,  which 
Mr.  Mitchell  considered  too  faithful  and  realistic,  he  passed 
this  caustic  criticism:  "I  feel  humiliated  every  time  I  look  at 
that  portrait  of  Thompson's.  All  the  age,  the  stolidity,  the 
cumbrous  flesh-burden  which  beset  an  old  man  are  honestly 
shown;  but  not  one  spark  or  trace  of  any  wise  and  hopeful 
unrest;  no  smallest  sign  of  any  reach  toward  better  things,  or 
of  any  strain  beyond  fleshly  cumbrances — in  short,  of  the 
ideality  which  makes  (or  should  make)  every  eager  soul  shine 
through  its  physical  belongings,  and  give  token  of  an  inner 

359 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

brooding  and  redeeming  spirituality.  This  is  an  excellent 
portrait — no  way  extenuated — of  a  weak  old  man,  with  hair 
uncombed,  who  is  trying  to  cover  the  martyrdom  of 'sitting 
for  his  picture*  by  spasms  of  content !" 

Mr.  Mitchell  had  a  habit  of  brightening  birthdays  and 
holidays  with  touches  of  sly  humor.  At  one  time  he  would 
present  a  book  from  his  library  to  a  member  of  the  family, 
and  later  on,  the  same  book  to  the  same  person — a  practice 
which  occasioned  considerable  merriment.  After  a  while  he 
formed  the  habit  of  prefacing  his  presentations  with  the 
remark:  "Here  is  a  book  for  you,  provided  I  haven't  given 
it  to  you  before."  When  he  had  no  money  for  presents,  he 
would  now  and  then  write  such  a  form  as  this:  "I  O  U  ten 
birthday  dollars."  Many  times  he  would  write  some  clever 
note  to  accompany  his  gifts.  On  the  forty-fourth  anni 
versary  of  their  marriage,  May  Jist,  1897,  he  gave  Mrs. 
Mitchell  an  envelope  containing  a  gift  of  gold  and  the  follow 
ing  verses: 

For  a  horse,  if  you  wish, 

Or  a  wedding  dish, 

Or  a  Brockett1  bill, 

Or  whatever  you  will, 

To  score  up  the  day — 

On  the  last  of  May, 

"Forty-four  year"  ago, 

When  we  stood  a-row 

In  the  old  King  Street  room — 

The  roses  all  a-bloom, 

And  you  in  your  wreath 

A-promising  Parson  Keith 

To  love,  honor,  obey  ! 

(It's  what  they  all  say !) 

1  Mr.  Brockett  was  a  carriage  maker  and  repairer. 
360 


HOME    LIFE 

The  reader  will  doubtless  recall  the  hope  which  Mr. 
Mitchell  voiced  in  his  valedictory  oration  that  education  in 
America  "should  seek  a  higher  dignity  by  a  more  intimate 
alliance  with  morality."  That  was  the  early  expression  of  a 
hope  born  of  a  deep-seated  healthfulness  of  mind  and  purity 
of  spirit  which  came  to  him  from  his  Puritan  ancestry. 
Every  one  who  came  in  contact  with  him  recognized  at  once 
that  essential  purity  which  was  one  of  his  most  pronounced 
characteristics.  The  whole  influence  of  his  life  was  on  the  side 
of  moral  goodness.  He  never  wrote  a  sentence  that  he  would 
have  wished  to  blot  out  through  fear  of  its  harmful  influence 
upon  an  impressionable  mind.  His  children  tell  me  that  in 
his  home  he  was  scrupulously  careful  to  avoid  even  the  sug 
gestion  of  evil.  It  was  always  his  custom  in  reading  aloud 
to  omit  any  passages  which  were  in  any  way  questionable. 
They  seemed  to  embarrass  him.  Sometimes  he  was  moved 
to  a  kind  of  savage  outburst  of  witty  comment.  I  have  in 
mind  particularly  his  dislike  of  the  nude  in  painting  and 
sculpture.  He  especially  disliked  St.  Gaudens's  statue  of 
Diana.  "Artemis,  Greek  Diana,  [is]  usually  [represented] 
in  kirtle,  sometimes  flowing  to  the  feet,  othertimes  tressed  up 
for  swift  movement  through  woods;  always,  too,  with  her 
bow  and  quiver,"  runs  one  of  his  notes.  "Except,  indeed, 
that  old  Diana  of  Ephesus,  with  the  three  tiers  of  breasts, 
who  presided  over  a  different  cult.  This,  however,  is  char 
acterized  by  best  Grecians  as  non-Hellenic;  it  was  colonial, 
provincial.  Again,  the  true  Hellenic  Diana  is  represented  as 
of  first  purity.  ^Eschylus,  in  Agamemnon  135,  characterizes 
her  as  ayva  (chaste,  pure);  and  Sophocles,  Electro,  1239,  as 
alev  aB/jLiJTav  (pure;  that  is,  untouched,  unsubmitted).  Now, 
that  such  a  goddess — who  slew  Acteon,  huntsman,  because 
he  had  seen  her  bathing — that  such  a  goddess  should, 

361 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

though  bearing  quiver  and  bow,  have  every  rag  of  clothing 
stripped  from  her  to  brave  the  higher  atmosphere  of  New 
York  (consider,  too,  that  the  poor  creature  was  put  to  the 
same  gross  exposure  on  the  Agricultural  Building  in  Chicago) 
is,  as  appears  to  me,  unwarranted  by  scripture,  or  good  taste, 
or  a  pitying  decency  !" 

If  any  one  thing  more  than  another  endeared  Mr.  Mitchell 
to  the  members  of  his  family  it  was  possibly  his  kindly  and 
thoughtful  unselfishness.  He  never  spared  himself  to  make 
those  about  him  comfortable  and  happy.  Many  times  he 
denied  himself  the  use  of  money  which  he  urgently  needed 
in  order  to  give  aid  or  pleasure  to  wife  or  children.  As  time 
went  on,  he  could  not  travel  with  pleasure  while  the  family 
remained  at  home.  "If  I  go,  I  shall  leave  New  York  about 
middle  of  May  for  Paris  direct,"  he  wrote  to  Huntington, 
March  nth,  1878,  when  the  matter  of  commissionership  to 
the  Universal  Exposition  was  under  consideration.  "I 
should  love  dearly  to  take  one  of  my  daughters  with  me, 
but  it  is  impossible.  The  cramp  upon  us  poor  landholders 
is  an  awful  one.  I  demur  most  about  going  because  I  must 
leave  those  behind  who  would  enjoy  it  all,  and  improve  by 
it,  more  than  I,  but  nevertheless  they  all  urge,  and  insist, 
and  entreat  that  I  should  go." 

Even  when  he  was  in  Paris  his  mind  was  always  reverting 
to  Edgewood.  The  City  of  Berlin  was  scarcely  started  on  her 
voyage  when  Mr.  Mitchell  was  writing  to  his  wife  in  this 
strain:  "I  puzzle  myself  from  time  to  time  with  picturing  the 
aspect  of  the  garden,  the  hedge,  the  lawn,  and  the  sight  of 
you  all  wandering  hither  and  thither  about  the  place." 
These  are  the  words  of  a  man  who  had  become  unalterably 
attached  to  home;  of  one  who  had  realized  almost  entirely  his 
early  dream: 

362 


HOME    LIFE 

Your  dreams  of  reputation,  your  swift  determination,  your  im 
pulsive  pride,  your  deep-uttered  vows  to  win  a  name,  have  all 
sobered  into  affection — have  all  blended  into  that  glow  of  feeling 
which  finds  its  centre  and  hope  and  joy  in  Home.  ...  It  is  not 
the  house — though  that  may  have  its  charms;  nor  the  fields  care 
fully  tilled,  and  streaked  with  your  own  footpaths;  nor  the  trees — 
though  their  shadow  be  to  you  like  that  of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary 
land;  nor  yet  is  it  the  fireside,  with  its  sweet  blaze-play;  nor  the 
pictures  which  tell  of  loved  ones;  nor  the  cherished  books;  but  more 
far  than  all  these — it  is  the  Presence.  The  Lares  of  your  worship 
are  there;  the  altar  of  your  confidence  is  there;  the  end  of  your 
worldly  faith  is  there;  and  adorning  it  all,  and  sending  your  blood 
in  passionate  flow,  is  the  ecstasy  of  the  conviction  that  there  at 
least  you  are  beloved;  that  there  you  are  understood;  that  there 
your  errors  will  meet  ever  with  gentlest  forgiveness;  that  there 
your  troubles  will  be  smiled  away;  that  there  you  may  unbur 
den  your  soul,  fearless  of  harsh,  unsympathizing  ears;  and  that 
there  you  may  be  entirely  and  joyfully — yourself.1 

None  could  feel  more  keenly  than  Mr.  Mitchell  the  inevi 
table  changes  wrought  by  time.  To  see  home  and  the  joys 
of  home  slipping  from  him  brought  sorrow  too  deep  for  utter 
ance.  He  saw  life  clearly,  and  never  tried  to  deceive  him 
self  by  any  cheap  philosophy  of  optimism.  "Death  is  al 
ways  death;  and  the  place  where  the  dead  lie,  always  Gol 
gotha/'  was  his  feeling.  "No  great  station  in  life,  and  no 
great  troop  of  friends,  can  take  away  wholly  the  sting  of 
bitter  home  griefs,"  he  wrote  to  his  daughter  Susan,  March 
28th,  1904.  And  yet  he  refused  to  allow  death  to  tyrannize 
over  life.  He  knew  the  passing  of  three  children:  Hesse 
Alston  ist,  in  1861;  James  Alfred  in  1892;  Pringle  in  1900. 
Quietly  and  without  bitterness  he  bore  these  afflictions.  It 

1  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor,  79-80. 
363 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

was  his  custom  to  have  only  a  simple  private  funeral  service, 
with  the  reading  of  a  prayer  and  a  hymn.  At  the  service  for 
James  Alfred,  Mr.  Mitchell  himself  read  the  hymn,  "O 
Mother  Dear,  Jerusalem,"  lingering  with  delight  over  the 
lines  of  these  stanzas: 

Thy  gardens  and  thy  gallant  walks 
Continually  are  green, 
There  grow  such  sweet  and  pleasant  flowers 
As  nowhere  else  are  seen. 

Quite  through  the  streets,  with  silver  sound, 
The  flood  of  life  doth  flow; 
Upon  whose  banks  on  every  side 
The  wood  of  life  doth  grow. 

In  1901  there  came  the  crowning  sorrow  of  his  life — the 
death  of  Mrs.  Mitchell.  As  he  saw  the  inevitable  approach 
ing,  he  wrote  these  words: 

Edgewood,  December  5th,  1901. 

I  am  sure  that  this  (Thursday  morning,  9  A.  M.)  is  the  last  that 
my  dear  wife  can  look  upon  the  sky  and  upon  the  faces  of  those  she 
loves.  A  whole  week  she  has  been  lingering — not  suffering  (as  the 
good  doctor  assures  us)  but  breathing  scantily,  taking  no  nourish 
ment,  yet  with  beautiful  patience  and  serenity,  waiting  for  the  end 
in  God's  own  time.  Not  wholly  here,  through  all  this  week  of 
lingering;  but  seeming  already  in  a  large  measure  translated  to 
fields  beyond,  and  only  straggling  and  struggling  back  with  a  voice 
that  made  weak  bubbles  of  faltering  sound  to  try  and  cheer  and 
comfort  us;  so  used  by  her  whole  nature  to  giving  cheer  and  com 
fort  to  others  that  she  could  not  help  nor  can  she  help  now  yearning 
to  continue  these  offices  of  comfort  with  her  fainting  voice  and 
fainting  power.  God  take  her — and  reward  her — as  I  know  He 
will. 

364 


HOME    LIFE 

After  her  burial,  instead  of  remaining  indoors  to  brood 
over  his  sorrow,  Mr.  Mitchell  took  his  usual  walk  over  the 
snow-clad  hills,  and  found  comfort  in  those  beauties  of  na 
ture  which  spoke  to  him  of  God.  On  the  I9th  of  July  1903, 
he  wrote  to  his  daughter  Harriet  the  following  note,  after  he 
had  read  the  tribute  which  she  had  written  to  the  memory 
of  her  mother:  "I  have  been  reading  your  touching  'leaves'  of 
writing  about  your  good  and  sainted  mother,  and  have  cried 
over  them.  .  .  .  With  a  little  more  fullness  of  biographical 
detail  perhaps  you  would  be  willing  they  should  be  copied  in 
type  so  that  some  of  your  friends  might  share  your  love  and 
admiration.  Think  of  this;  but  remember,  too,  that  the 
fondest  and  best  deserved  memories  of  what  is  lost  may,  by 
too  much  dwelling  on  them,  grow  morbid  and  so  cheat  life  of 
its  courage  and  vital  everyday  duties.  Think  what  your  good 
mother  would  have  taught  you  this  wise.  With  all  her  sweet 
ness  and  loveliness  of  character,  her  admirable  good  sense 
and  sound  judgment  were  yet  dominant."  In  these  words 
we  recognize  the  note  of  healthfulness  and  sanity  which 
dominated  the  home  life  of  Edgewood. 


365 


XVIII 
FRIENDSHIPS 

Now,  there  is  no  man  more  glad  to  meet  friends,  I  am  sure 
— nay,  none  who  longs  for  their  presence  at  times,  more  than  I. 
— D.  G.  M.  in  random  note. 

Mr.  Mitchell's  friendships  can  be  understood  only  in  the 
light  of  his  temperament.  In  the  letters  already  given  in 
this  biography  he  has  himself  revealed  the  essential  features 
of  his  nature.  His  reticence,  his  desire  for  solitude,  his 
shrinking  from  publicity,  all  these  qualities  grew  upon  him 
with  age — were  fostered,  indeed,  by  the  retired  life  which  he 
chose  to  live  at  Edgewood.  There  is  a  passage  in  an  un 
published  sketch  of  his  brother  Louis,  in  which  Mr.  Mitchell 
has  described  his  own  nature  quite  accurately.  "Another 
noticeable  thing  in  him,  noticeable  by  strangers  especially, 
was  a  certain  infelicity  of  manner  when  strangers  broke  sud 
denly  upon  him.  Like  a  plant  grown  in  the  shade,  sud 
denly  set  into  the  scald  of  bright  sunlight,  there  was  a  wilt 
ing,  a  poorly  disguised  eagerness  to  be  rid  of  it  all,  and  back 
in  his  quietude,  and  his  corner.  This  shrinking  habit  of  his, 
partly,  I  think,  an  inheritance  ...  he  never  outgrew;  nor 
tried  or  wished  to  outgrow;  never  could,  if  he  had  wished. 
It  was  as  much  part  of  him,  and  as  ineradicable,  as  the 
drooping  habit  of  a  harebell."  Most  people  who  came  to 
know  Mr.  Mitchell  in  more  than  a  casual  way  were  familiar 
with  this  side  of  his  nature.  Those  in  authority  found  it  al 
most  impossible  to  coax  him  away  from  Edgewood  for  a  talk 


FRIENDSHIPS 

to  Yale  students.  Before  going  to  Utica  School  in  1881  to 
read  a  few  lectures  he  admonished  Mrs.  Piatt  in  this  fash 
ion:  "Please,  too,  screen  me  from  any  dinings-out,  or  tea- 
fights.  I  am  not  up  to  it,  and  the  readings  alone  exhaust 
all  the  nerve  forces  I  can  rally." 

I  find  a  note  in  which  he  refers  to  a  characteristic  which 
puzzled  even  himself.  "It  is  strange,  but  it  is  true,  for  my 
own  experience  most  sadly  confirms  it,  that  the  very  persons 
of  all  the  world  whom  I  would  be  most  glad  to  meet,  and  most 
tremble  for  joy  to  meet,  I  have  absolutely  avoided,  if  I  saw 
them  on  the  other  side  of  the  street;  I  have  turned  out  of  the 
way  to  avoid.  What  this  means,  or  what  is  its  philosophy,  I 
do  not,  and  cannot  tell."  In  all  likelihood  such  action  was 
the  result  of  his  inherent  shyness.  It  was  difficult  for  him  to 
make  approaches,  to  establish  immediate  ease  of  relation 
ship.  The  mere  act  of  doing  so  consumed  his  energy,  and 
became  a  weariness  of  the  flesh.  For  many  years  he  met  on 
the  New  Haven  street-cars  prominent  residents  of  the  city 
with  whom  he  came  to  no  more  than  a  casual  speaking  ac 
quaintance.  He  seemed  to  have  a  dread  of  making  advances, 
though,  as  his  children  assure  me,  when  he  was  once  "cor 
nered"  no  man  could  be  more  charming.  Ordinarily,  if  one 
wished  to  know  Mr.  Mitchell,  and  to  enjoy  his  friendship, 
one  found  it  necessary  to  make  the  first  advances.  Those 
who  did  seek  him  out  were  not  disappointed.  I  find  this 
statement  in  one  of  his  note-books:  "Now,  the  real  essence 
of  all  hospitality,  whether  bestowed  or  offered,  is  to  impress 
one  with  the  feeling  that  bestowment  of  the  favor  is  alto 
gether  on  the  guest's  part,  and  that  it  is  to  be  asked,  not  as 
alms,  but  a  tender  and  welcome  charity — a  kindness." 
Those  who  sought  him  came  to  experience  in  his  home  such 
essential  hospitality. 

367 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

A  few  sentences  which  he  once  wrote  on  the  subject  of 
"Calling"  confirm  my  belief  that  what  some  people  thought 
to  be  an  unsocial  element  in  his  nature  was  only  a  paralysis 
of  action — a  dread  of  initiative: 

I  believe  a  great  many  peaceable  and  injured  men  go  out  of  the 
world  with  a  weight  of  objurgation  and  acrimony  heaped  upon 
them  unjustly,  simply  by  reason  of  their  horror  of  "calling."  I 
must  confess  that  I  write  this  in  a  spirit  of  self-exculpation.  I 
know  I  have  made  a  vast  many  enemies  that  I  never  intended  to 
make,  that  I  feared  to  make,  simply  from  my  horror  of  "calling." 
Now,  there  is  no  man  more  glad  to  meet  friends,  I  am  sure — nay, 
none  who  longs  for  their  presence  at  times,  more  than  I.  But  to 
"call,"  to  march  to  a  naked  front  door,  in  a  naked  street;  to  ring  a 
bell,  and  hear  its  echoes  alarming  all  the  quiet  below,  or  in  some 
back  kitchen;  to  feel  that  the  servant  is  wrested  from  her  nap,  and 
cook  in  a  feeze  lest  it  be  some  visitor  who  is  to  lodge,  and  the 
master  and  mistress  started  upon  their  several  fancies;  to  be 
ushered  into  a  stately  parlor;  to  give  one's  name;  to  seek  out  an  easy 
chair  in  that  dim  ten  minutes  of  waiting;  to  compress  civilities  into 
a  ten  minutes'  conventionalism  of  talk;  to  tell  the  same  joke  you 
told  yesterday;  to  make  those  everlasting  allusions  to  the  unusual 
coldness  of  the  season,  or  to  the  fineness  of  the  day;  to  say  the  spring 
is  remarkably  late  this  year;  and  then,  when  you  have  just  warmed 
through  the  insipidities  and  platitudes  of  conventional  talk,  and 
were  just  warming  to  say  something  you  really  meant,  or  to  talk 
of  something  you  really  cared  about,  to  find  the  best  way  out  of  it 
by  bidding  good  morning — it  is  terrible.  The  walking  up  to  a 
man's  door  designedly,  of  malice  aforethought  to  commit  this 
breach  of  heartiness  and  truth  is  fearful.  I  like  the  accidental 
meetings — now  with  my  neighbor  whom  I  see  hoeing  potatoes  in 
his  field.  I  drop  over  the  fence,  give  him  good  day,  sit  upon  a  rail, 
and  have  a  long  chat  with  him.  We  waste  no  time  in  empty 
conventionalisms. 

368 


FRIENDSHIPS 

Along  with  all  this  reticence  and  love  of  solitude  he  had, 
as  he  said,  a  positive  longing  for  human  companionship.  In 
fact,  few  men  have  been  more  dependent  upon  the  good-will 
and  the  helpful  encouragement — even  the  praise — of  friends 
than  was  he.  People  recognized  his  sterling  qualities,  his 
entire  sincerity,  his  hatred  of  sham;  and  valued  his  confidence 
accordingly.  A  kind  of  virtue  went  out  from  him,  and  in 
fluenced  people  in  all  walks  of  life.  It  was  no  uncommon 
thing  for  washwomen  in  New  Haven  to  keep  his  picture 
hanging  on  their  walls.  Henry  Mills  Alden  once  forwarded 
to  Edgewood  a  book  which  he  inscribed  to  "Donald  G. 
Mitchell,  who  could  have  taken  the  hand,  and  has  touched 
the  heart,  of  every  eminent  man  of  letters  in  America.'* 
And  we  are  to  remember  that  Mr.  Mitchell  numbered  his 
friends  by  the  hundreds.  To  form  some  notion  of  his  genius 
for  friendship,  it  is  only  needful  to  say  that  he  was  personally 
acquainted  with  Washington  Irving,  Nathaniel  Hawthorne, 
Charles  Dickens,  George  P.  Marsh,  Bayard  Taylor,  Henry 
James,  Sr.,  George  Bancroft,  Henry  W.  Longfellow,  Na 
thaniel  P.  Willis,  Daniel  C.  Gilman,  Paul  Hamilton  Hayne, 
Mary  Mapes  Dodge,  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  George  William 
Curtis,  and  William  Winter,  all  of  whom  admired  and  loved 
him.  We  are  not  surprised,  however,  to  find  that  the  really 
intimate  friendships  of  a  man  endowed  with  such  nature 
were  few. 

His  most  intimate  friends  were  three:  Mary  Goddard, 
William  Henry  Huntington,  and  Dr.  B.  Fordyce  Barker. 
His  affection  for  Mrs.  Goddard,  the  Mary  with  whom  we 
have  become  closely  acquainted  in  the  previous  chapters,  is 
best  commemorated  in  a  letter  written  by  him  to  Julia  Piatt 
soon  after  her  mother's  death.  It  bears  date  of  May  joth, 
1886: 

369 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

I  was  sorry  not  to  see  more  of  you  on  that  short  stay  in  Nor 
wich — and  yet,  not  sorry.  Talking,  however  well-meant,  is  always 
so  idle  when  we  are  near  to  great  griefs;  and  I  am  sure  I  can  tell  you 
better  in  a  letter,  how  much  I  loved  your  mother,  and  how  much 
she  was  to  me  during  a  long  period  of  my  life.  In  days  you  can't 
remember — you  were  so  young — she  was  at  once  a  sister  and  a 
mother  to  me,  harming  me  very  likely  (as  I  see  now)  by  care  and 
indulgences  which  only  a  mother  could  show;  making  my  life 
bright,  and  putting  tender  hopefulness  in  it  when  I  was  depressed 
and  seemed  doomed  by  deaths  of  those  nearest,  and  death  threat 
ening  me.  Hence  it  is  that  I  love  that  old  house  in  Salem  (which 
love  you  seem  unable  to  understand)  because  your  most  affec 
tionate  and  self-sacrificing  mother  made  it  a  home  to  me,  and 
never  ceased  doing  things  that  made  it  more  and  more  welcome  to 
me;  and  doing  them  so  well  and  cordially  that  in  spite  of  all  the 
depressions  and  isolation  of  it,  I  do  still  look  back  to  those  few  years 
passed  at  Salem,  when  your  mother  reigned  and  beamed  there,  as 
among  those  which  I  look  back  to  (and  always  shall)  most  yearn 
ingly.  The  earlier  days  in  which  she  was  among  the  best  beloved  of 
our  Norwich  household,  don't  warm  my  memory  in  the  same  way 
(perhaps  because  so  young  then)  as  those  later  ones  when  she  took 
me  into  a  home  of  her  own,  and  abounded  in  those  kindnesses 
which  I  could  look  for  no  where  else.  You  must  never  laugh  at  my 
cherishment  of  Salem  reminiscences.  They  are  broader  and  deeper 
— by  reason  of  your  mother — than  you  can  well  understand. 

After  Mrs.  Goddard's  death,  Mr.  Mitchell  cherished  a  simi 
lar  affection  for  her  daughter,  and  gave  to  it  lasting  enshrine- 
ment  in  the  graceful  dedication  of  the  third  volume  of 
English  Lands  >  Letters^  and  Kings. 

B.  Fordyce  Barker  was  a  native  of  Maine,  born  at  Wilton, 
in  1819.  After  graduation  from  Bowdoin  in  1837,  he  com 
pleted  the  course  at  Harvard  Medical  School  in  1841,  later 
studying  in  Edinburgh  and  Paris.  His  acquaintance  with 

370 


FRIENDSHIPS 

Mr.  Mitchell  began  in  Paris  in  1844,  and  ripened  into  friend 
ship  after  he  began  practising  his  profession  in  Norwich, 
Connecticut,  in  1845.  Barker  was  of  a  free  and  open  nature. 
He  was  fond  of  society,  and  a  lavish  dispenser  of  hospitality. 
"His  face  and  smile,"  wrote  Mr.  Mitchell,  "made  friendships 
wherever  he  went.  Irving  took  to  him  at  sight.  His  tact 
was  marvelous;  his  intuition,  wonderful;  his  observation, 
strangely  acute."  In  short,  he  was  just  the  kind  of  friend  a 
shy,  sensitive  man  needed.  In  1856  Dr.  Barker  went  to 
New  York  City,  and  rose  to  great  prominence  in  his  pro 
fession.  Columbia  University  conferred  the  Doctorate  of 
Laws  upon  him  in  1877,  Edinburgh  in  1884,  Bowdoin  in 
1887,  and  Glasgow  in  1888.  Mr.  Mitchell  rejoiced  in  every 
honor  that  came  to  Dr.  Barker,  as  if  it  were  his  own.  Twice 
he  gave  public  recognition  to  their  friendship  by  dedicating 
to  the  doctor  Fudge  Doings  and  Seven  Stories.  In  1878  it 
was  Mr.  Mitchell's  good  fortune  to  enjoy  a  period  of  Euro 
pean  travel  with  Dr.  Barker,  when  both  had  the  privilege  of 
spending  a  few  days  as  the  guests  of  Sir  Spencer  Wells, 
physician  to  Queen  Victoria,  at  his  beautiful  country  home 
near  Hampstead.  Dr.  Barker  was  never  so  busy  that  he 
could  not  find  time  to  go  to  Edgewood  to  render  needed  medi 
cal  attention  to  his  friend.  Although  they  did  not  often 
have  the  opportunity  of  seeing  each  other,  their  friendship 
continued  warm  and  intimate  until  the  death  of  Dr.  Barker 
in  1891. 

We  must  remember  that  Mr.  Mitchell  was  twenty-two 
years  old  when  he  met  Barker.  Theirs  was,  of  necessity,  a 
friendship  of  maturity;  it  was  not  founded  upon  common 
childhood  memories.  It  was  partly  because  of  such  foun 
dation  that  the  friendship  existing  between  him  and  William 
Henry  Huntington  was  the  most  intimate  of  his  life — as  it 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

was  the  most  intimate  of  Huntington 's  life.  As  we  have 
seen,  it  began  during  earliest  childhood  when  both  were  at 
tending  "dame  school"  in  Norwich.  In  a  letter  written  to 
Mrs.  Mitchell,  June  I2th,  1879,  Mr.  Huntington  referred  to 
its  genesis  in  this  fashion: 

Your  letter  of  29th  May  came  in  yesterday.  I  am  indeed  sorry 
to  hear  that  your  good  husband  has  been  suffering  from  acutely 
painful  malady.  I  have  not  wittingly  an  enemy  on  earth,  and 
wish  no  one  ill,  but  there  is  hardly  another  whom  I  wish  so  well  as 
Don  Mitchell.  Your  good  husband  has  been  for  long  my  very 
good  friend;  except  an  only  surviving  brother,  there  is  no  one 
living  whom  I  have  known  so  long.  Our  acquaintance  began  more 
than  half  a  century  ago  at  Miss  Goodale's  school,  and  ripened 
into  intimacy  over  Webster's  Spelling  Book.  It  is  odd  how  dis 
tinctly  I  recollect,  when  we  had  attained  words  of  three  syllables, 
his  putting  his  finger  on  the  word  "catholic,"  in  which  he  found 
specially  amusing  quality  by  virtue  of  the  cat  part  of  it.  ...  Then 
we  lost  sight  of  each  other.  D.  G.  went  away  to  Ellington,  or  some 
such  foreign  parts,  and  then  to  college,  and  we  re-met  only  after  his 
first  return  from  Europe.  It  required  little  scraping  to  come  to  ac 
quaintance  again,  and  presently  after  his  second  return  this  grew 
to  a  friendship  of  more  honor,  profit,  and  prize  to  me  than  any  other 
I  rejoice  in  to-day.  And  this  I  have  partly  to  thank  you  for,  dear 
Mrs.  Mitchell;  at  least  have  to  thank  you  for  not  drawing  it  away, 
as  young  ladies  sometimes  do  the  bachelor  friendships  of  their 
young  lords.  ...  I  never  forget  how  kindly  you  received  me 
when  you  came  to  Paris,  and  when  my  way  leads  through  Rue 
Luxembourg,  I  look  up  to  the  corner  windows,  and  feel  the  better 
for  it  to  this  day. 

About  1851  Huntington  went  to  Paris,  where  he  re 
mained,  except  for  occasional  visits  to  America,  living  the 
life  of  a  recluse  bachelor.  He  became  a  collector  of  books 

372 


FRIENDSHIPS 

and  art  treasures,  his  art  collection  eventually  finding  place 
in  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  New  York  City.  Through 
out  their  lives  the  two  friends — so  unlike  in  their  domestic 
relationships — maintained  delightful  correspondence.  Hunt- 
ington  had  a  happy  humor,  and  a  wholesome,  hearty  outlook 
upon  life,  which  he  always  attempted  to  impart  to  his  friend, 
especially  when  replying  to  a  letter  of  melancholy  tone. 

After  a  visit  to  Edgewood  in  1866,  Huntington  wrote, 
January  9th: 

My  two  days  with  you  and  our  gracious  Lady  of  Edgewood,  and 
the  pretty  children  there,  were  foremost  ...  in  glad  experience, 
and  rest  always  high  placed  in  my  pleasantest  memories.  You 
were  saying  one  of  those  agreeable  nights,  or  one  of  those  charming 
mornings,  that  you  might  have  done  better  than  in  your  writing 
line  had  you  taken  to  the  preaching  profession.  Ah,  if  you  only 
knew,  dear,  happy  man,  how  wisely  and  well  you  preached  to  me 
miserable  from  your  wise,  happy,  fulfilled  life  as  father  of  sweet 
children,  and  husband  seven-fold  blessed  !  .  .  .  Thank  the  higher 
powers  that  you  have  been  let  be  so  fortunate  and  full-fruited 
with 

love,  and  a  space  for  delight, 
And  beauty  and  length  of  days, 
And  night,  and  sleep  in  the  night; 

when  for  every  one  of  ninety-nine  in  a  hundred  it  rests  true  that 

He  weaves,  and  is  clothed  with  derision; 

Sows,  and  he  shall  not  reap; 
His  life  is  a  watch  or  a  vision 

Between  a  sleep  and  a  sleep. 

Sometimes  he  adopted  a  lighter  tone,  as  in  his  letter  of 
November  5th,  1878: 

I  do  say  that  a  man  verging  toward  sixty  who  can  cut  and  cut  up 
a  cord  of  wood  a  day  (why  Gladstone  is  only  seventy  or  so,  and  he 

373 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

only  cuts  one  tree  at  a  time),  and  go  home  after  that  to  satisfy  his 
earned  appetite  at  a  table  beset  by  a  charming,  loving  household, 
and  has  good  baccy  to  smoke  (think  what  vegetable  matter  we 
have  here  for  our  pipes,  and  be  thankful !)  and  a  good  wood-fire  to 
smoke  it  at,  and  then  goes  picking  a  quarrel  with  this  poor  old 
world's  goings-on,  ought  to  be — spanked.  D.  G.  M.  do  do  all  these 
things.  Then  D.  G.  M.  ought  to  be  spanked.  ^.  E.  D.  You  are 
not  near  enough — how  1  wish  you  were ! — for  me  to  perform  that 
stern  but  pleasing  office.  And  1  doubt  if  there  be  anyone  in  your 
immediate  neighborhood  of  sufficient  muscular  vigor  and  authori 
tative  age  to  undertake  it. 

In  1883  Mr.  Mitchell  determined  to  dedicate  a  new  edi 
tion  of  Dr.  Johns  to  his  boyhood  friend.  "I  don't  know  if 
you  will  approve/'  he  wrote,  November  28th,  1883,  "but  I 
have  put  your  name  on  an  initial  page  of  the  new  edition  of 
Dr.  Johns  (very  much  revised  and  somewhat  cut  down  in 
preachments)  as  dedicatee.  A  cablegram,  if  you  insist  to  the 
contrary,  would  very  like  come  in  time  to  stop  the  matter; 
but  I  hope  you  won't/'  Huntington  had  no  desire  "to  stop 
the  matter/'  On  the  24th  of  March  1884,  he  wrote:  "The 
fact  of  the  dedication,  and  its  form,  are  most  grateful  to  me. 
The  book  I  read  again  with  more  than  the  first  interest.  I 
don't  think  this  is  because  of  what  you  have  cut  from,  or 
added  to,  the  first  edition — am  sure  it  is  not  mainly  because 
of  that;  but  rather  because  of  my  being  almost  thirty  years 
further  removed  from  the  scenes  and  their  moral  atmosphere, 
which  you  reproduce.  To  the  truth  of  the  drawing,  time  has 
lent  the  charm  of  perspective,  and  a  softened  harmony  of 
color.  And  then  I  had  just  been  reading  La  Joie  de  Vivre, 
after  which  Dr.  Johns  is  like  a  bath  and  [a]  clean  shirt." 

Huntington   died  in   Paris,   October    ist,    1885.      More 
than  a  year  later  (November  5th,  1886),  Mrs.  Estelle  E. 

374 


FRIENDSHIPS 

Doremus  wrote  to  Mr.  Mitchell  as  follows:  "After  having 
closed  the  eyes  of  poor  Huntington,  I  took  a  spray  of  flowers, 
the  last  thing  his  eyes  had  rested  upon,  and  placed  it  in  his 
hand  until  they  took  him  away  for  burial.  .  .  .  His  faithful 
nurse  Angele — she  was  an  angel,  indeed,  to  him — used  to 
talk  continually  of  his  dearest  friend,  'Monsieur  Michel.' 
It  was  a  long  time  before  I  found  out  that  it  was  you  she 
meant.  'He  loved  Monsieur  Michel  the  best/  she  would 
repeat.  I  thought  you  would  like  to  know  this,  so  I  took  a 
flower  from  his  hand  and  pressed  it,  that  it  might  go  with  the 
message." 

When  Dr.  Barker  died,  in  1891,  Mr.  Mitchell  realized 
that  his  intimate  friends  were  indeed  gone.  To  be  sure  there 
yet  remained  a  few  college-mates — Yarnall,  Curwen,  Emer 
son,  Law — but  with  these  it  was  impossible  that  he  should 
ever  enjoy  such  communion  as  that  with  Barker  and  Hunt 
ington.  To  Mr.  Mitchell  friendship  was  a  matter  of  quality, 
not  of  quantity.  It  was  enough  for  him  to  have  known  three 
such  friends  as  Mary  Goddard,  Henry  Huntington,  and 
Fordyce  Barker.  And  it  is  sufficient  testimony  to  the  rich 
ness  of  a  man's  nature,  and  to  his  capacity  for  friendship,  to 
have  won  such  warmth  of  affection  from  one  strong-minded 
woman,  and  from  two  men  of  high  intellect  and  distinguished 
attainment. 


375 


XIX 

THE  LONG  TWILIGHT 

I  will  hope  for  a  sunset,  when  the  day  ends,  glorious  with  crim 
son  and  gold. — Reveries  of  a  Bachelor,  257. 

But  a  crimson  belt  yet  lingered  over  the  horizon,  though  the 
stars  were  out. — Reveries  of  a  Bachelor,  297. 

After  passing  the  age  of  seventy  Mr.  Mitchell  kept  more 
and  more  closely  within  the  bounds  of  his  Edgewood  home. 
He  had  travelled;  he  had  tasted  adventure;  he  had  known 
busy  cities;  he  had  experienced  a  great  blaze  of  popular 
favor;  and  through  a  long  succession  of  years  had  enjoyed 
the  quiet  of  country  life.  With  age  came  no  regret  for  the 
course  which  he  had  followed;  rather,  a  deepening  conviction 
that  in  no  other  way  could  he  so  well  have  fulfilled  his  na 
ture.  Time  had  only  made  the  calm  of  Edgewood  increas 
ingly  satisfying  to  him,  had  ripened  his  genial  philosophy 
of  life,  and  brought  him  both  contentment  and  wisdom. 
After  a  long  period  of  strenuous  endeavor,  pressing  financial 
problems  had  now  been  eliminated.  At  times  he  felt,  of 
course,  the  oppressions  of  age,  and  that  sense  of  loneliness 
and  melancholy  which  comes  to  those  who  have  outlived  al 
most  all  of  their  own  generation.  He  had  once  begun  the 
somewhat  saddening  practice  of  checking  in  his  Yale  cata 
logues  the  names  of  his  instructors  and  classmates,  as  each 
died.  By  the  end  of  1899  he  had  checked  off  the  entire 
faculty  of  his  college  days,  and  all  but  10  of  the  104  fresh 
men  of  1837.  When  he  died  he  was  survived  by  only  3  of 
his  own  class.  The  death  of  Mrs.  Mitchell  in  1901  left  him 

37* 


THE    LONG   TWILIGHT 

solitary,  and  brought  realization  of  the  fact  that  for  him 
memories  constituted  the  most  of  life.  And  yet  withal, 
in  its  own  way,  this  was  a  peaceful,  even  a  happy  period. 
His  faithful  daughters  ministered  to  his  comfort.  He  en 
joyed  the  affection  of  thousands  of  unseen  friends  who 
visited  him  by  letter;  and  knew  the  homage  of  many 
whose  pilgrimages  centred  at  Edgewood.  "I  have  much 
to  be  thankful  for,"  he  remarked  to  me  in  August  1903. 
"1  have  lived  long,  and  suffer  few  of  the  infirmities  of  age. 
Time  has  dealt  gently  with  me."  Twilight  had  indeed 
come — a  twilight  long,  beautiful,  serene. 

"The  Edgewood  farm  experiences  are  near  and  yet  some 
how  remote,"  he  wrote  in  December  I897.1  uThe  same  old 
scenes  are  before  me  now,  yet  I  have  long  foregone  that  close 
superintendence  of  farm-cropping  to  which  I  brought  a 
young  enthusiasm;  and  I  see,  full-face,  negligences  that  are 
disturbing,  and  disorder  which  is  past  my  power  of  mending. 
But  nature  wears  always  its  old  serenities.  No  less  than  at 
the  beginning,  keenest  attention  and  loving  care  are  given  to 
those  garden  spaces  immediately  about  me,  where  thirty 
years  since  I  planted  and  watered  my  salads  and  brooded  in 
the  sunshine.  In  all  this  near  territory  I  take  the  old  delight, 
and  find  the  fruits  as  sweet,  the  earth  as  kindly,  the  flowers  as 
fragrant,  and  the  sun  as  warm  as  when  home  began.  The 
trees,  too,  are  steadier  and  stancher  friends;  the  shaded  walks 
coiling  away  upon  the  hills,  the  purple  distance,  and  the 
bright  sheen  of  sea  have  the  old  charm.  The  autumn  haunts 
of  the  woodland  are  still  full  of  fire  and  gold;  but  the  shadows 
the  trees  cast  are  longer,  and  so  are  the  shadows  of  the  years. 
But  whatever  the  shadows  may  be,  it  is  good  to  have  a  foot 
hold  upon  Mother  Earth,  and  to  live  face  to  face  with  nature, 

1<<The  Season's  Greeting,"  Breeder's  Gazette,  December  i$th. 

377 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

where  birds  and  brooks  and  breezes  keep  up  their  anthem, 
and  all  sounds  invite  'peace  and  good  will  to  men.'1 

Until  within  a  few  months  of  his  death,  he  continued  to 
use  the  axe,  cutting  and  splitting  the  wood  with  which  he 
filled  the  shed  for  the  glowing  hearth-fires  of  early  autumn 
and  winter.  While  strength  remained,  he  took  long  walks 
over  the  Woodbridge  hills  behind  Edgewood.  Sometimes 
he  went  beyond  New  Haven  in  the  street-cars,  and  spent  the 
afternoons  wandering  about  the  countryside.  Again,  with  one 
of  his  daughters  he  would  drive  into  the  Salem  region,  and 
live  over  the  days  of  his  youth.  He  was  pleased  when,  upon 
a  suggestion  from  him,  his  brother  Alfred  purchased  1,200 
acres  of  the  ancestral  domains  and  brought  them  (1900-1903) 
once  more  under  Mitchell  control.  After  walking  became  diffi 
cult  for  him  he  seldom  passed  a  day  without  a  leisurely  drive. 
In  the  evening  he  turned  to  his  books,  or  worked  at  map- 
making.  Oftener  still,  as  his  eyesight  grew  more  feeble,  he 
listened  while  his  daughters  read.  His  habit  of  work  per 
sisted,  and  he  ventured  to  project  literary  tasks  that  would 
have  tried  the  strength  of  a  younger,  stronger  man.  I  find 
that  after  the  publication  of  the  second  volume  of  American 
Lands  and  Letters  in  1899,  he  turned  to  the  preparation  of 
another,  as  is  attested  by  a  statement  upon  one  of  the  sheets 
to  the  effect  that  the  notes  were  for  "a  possible  but  not  prob 
able  third  volume."  As  late  as  1907  he  was  hoping  for 
strength  sufficient  to  prepare  for  publication  the  manuscript 
of  the  fifth  volume  of  English  Lands ,  Letter -s,  and  Kings. 
With  Bunyan's  Feeblemind  he  could  say:  "This  I  have  re 
solved  on,  to  run  when  I  can,  to  go  when  I  cannot  run,  and 
to  creep  when  I  cannot  go.  As  to  the  main  I  am  fixed;  my 
way  is  before  me,  my  mind  is  beyond  the  river  that  has  no 
bridge." 

378 


THE    LONG   TWILIGHT 

He  made  an  occasional  visit  to  his  daughter,  Mrs.  Ed 
ward  L.  Ryerson,  of  Chicago;  but  for  the  most  part  confined 
his  travel  to  such  distances  as  did  not  keep  him  from  home 
overnight.  Even  New  York  City  came  to  seem  far  off  to 
him.  "Thank  you  for  your  kind  invitation,"  he  wrote  to 
Mr.  Charles  Scribner,  December  I5th,  1896;  "but  I  have  not 
been  in  New  York  for  a  night  for  four  or  five  years;  have  not 
even  passed  through  for  three  years,  and  feel  very  much  as 
if  I  had  lost  all  fellowship  with  cities." 

By  1895  his  family  had  all  gone  out  from  Edgewood  save 
the  daughters  Elizabeth,  Hesse,  and  Harriet.  With  a  filial 
devotion  rarely  equalled,  they  cared  for  their  distinguished 
father.  He  recognized  the  beauty  of  this  devotion,  and  never 
tired  of  paying  tribute  to  it.  "Well,"  he  wrote  to  Elizabeth 
in  1899,  "the  seventy-seventh  year  has  ended  !  I  wonder  if 
another  can  come  ?  These  last  years,  with  all  the  weaknesses, 
and  the  tottering  steps,  and  the  'grass-hoppers'  heaping  up 
the  'burdens/  have  not  been  the  unpleasantest  of  life;  for 
the  kindnesses  of  those  immediately  about  me  have  multi 
plied  and  made  the  'down-hill  road'  seem  like  a  goodly  level, 
with  welcoming  lights  shining  on  a  home-hearth  at  the  end  of 
all  the  walks  and  drives  I  take." 

In  1901  Mr.  Mitchell  made  his  last  public  appearance  in 
connection  with  the  two  hundredth  anniversary  of  the  found 
ing  of  Yale.  "As  an  inheritor  of  some  side-flow  of  Wood- 
bridge  blood,"  he  was  chosen  to  give  the  principal  address  at 
the  dedication  of  Woodbridge  Hall  on  the  2jd  of  October. 
Not  the  least  of  the  pleasure  which  he  derived  from  this  oc 
casion  resulted  from  his  strong  belief  "that  monumental 
memorials  consecrated  to  every-day,  high,  human  uses  are 
far  better  worth  than  all  the  glitter  of  church-yards,  and  all 
the  pomp  of  funeral  obsequies."  Notwithstanding  his  ad- 

379 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

vanced  age,  he  was  at  his  best  on  that  day — his  health  good, 
his  voice  clear  and  melodious.  In  a  delightful  way  he 
sketched  the  life  of  Timothy  Woodbridge,  for  whom  the 
building  was  named;  and,  as  he  closed,  gave  expression  to  his 
vision  of  Yale's  future: 

And  so  this  great  belt  of  Woodbridge  influences  which  I  have 
sketched  in  bold  outline — cropping  out  in  churches,  in  teeming 
villages,  in  mills  that  fire  the  October  nights — this  whole  Wood- 
bridge  belt,  I  say,  is  to-day  buckled  by  this  jewel  of  a  building 
about  the  loins  of  this  stalwart  University  of  Yale.  Long  may  it 
last  poised  here  midway  between  the  groups  of  offices  dedicated  to 
science,  and  those  others  southward,  dedicated  to  letters  and  the 
humanities !  And  whoso  holds  the  reins  in  this  comely  adminis 
trative  center  should  see  to  it  that  there  is  even  working  of  these 
two  great  teams  of  progress — no  nagging  at  one,  while  free  rein  is 
given  to  the  other !  Ah,  what  fine  judgment  belongs  to  driving 
well — whether  on  coaches,  or  in  colleges,  or  in  capitols ! 

There  are  oldish  people  astir — gone-by  products  of  these  mills 
of  learning — who  will  watch  anxiously  lest  harm  be  done  to  apostles 
of  the  old  humanities.  You  may  apotheosize  the  Faradays  and 
Danas  and  the  Edisons  and  Huxleys,  and  we  will  fling  our  caps  in 
the  air  !  But  we  shall  ask  that  you  spare  us  our  Plato,  our  Homer, 
our  Virgil,  our  Dante,  and  perhaps  our  "chattering"  Aristotle  and 
scoffing  Carlyle.  Truth — however  and  wherever  won — without 
nervous  expression  to  spread  and  plant  it,  is  helpless;  a  bird  without 
wings !  And  there  are  beliefs  tenderly  cherished — and  I  call  the 
spires  of  nineteen  centuries  to  witness — which  do  not  rest  on  the 
lens  or  the  scalpel ! 

I  hope  that  the  glow  of  a  hundred  other  Octobers  may  mellow 
the  tone  of  this  marble  hall,  and  that  within  times  we  lag 
gards  may  hope  to  reach,  a  broad  esplanade  all  unencumbered, 
and  flanked  with  shading  lindens  if  the  elms  fail  us,  shall  sweep 
away  southward,  and  by  a  rich,  lofty,  fretted  portal  cloven  through 

380 


THE    LONG   TWILIGHT 

the  walls  of  Durfee,  give  rich  and  far  perspective  into  the  court  of 
the  great  Academe  beyond.  And  I  see  in  my  mind's  eye,  springing 
from  this  lofty  portal,  a  new  Rialto,  stiff  with  sinews  of  steel,  rich 
with  emblems,  spanning  at  one  bound  the  surging  tides  of  traffic 
that  ebb  and  flow  through  Elm  Street,  binding  the  two  great 
courts  in  one;  and  with  winged  figures  in  bronze  upon  the  parapets, 
recording  Yale's  triumphs  of  the  past,  and  heralding  a  thousand 
other  triumphs  to  come. 

During  these  quiet  years  there  came  to  Mr.  Mitchell 
frequent  public  recognition  of  the  ideals  for  which  he  had 
labored.  He  was  peculiarly  gratified  by  that  which  came 
from  the  New  England  Association  of  Park  Superintendents, 
when,  at  the  annual  meeting  in  New  Haven,  June  i4th,  1904, 
the  following  minute  was  adopted: 

Resolved,  that  we  present  to  Mr.  Donald  G.  Mitchell  a  loving 
cup  as  a  token  of  our  appreciation  of  his  life-long  interest  in  the 
promotion  of  a  better  out-door  life,  and  as  an  expression  of  the 
love  we  bear  him  for  the  kindly  words  he  has  ever  written  and 
spoken,  and  our  admiration  of  his  work  in  laying  the  foundation 
of  the  city  beautiful  on  which  we  have  tried  to  build. 

The  next  day  Mr.  Christopher  Clarke,  of  Northampton, 
Massachusetts,  on  behalf  of  the  association  greeted  Mr. 
Mitchell  as  "a  pioneer  master  workman."  "We  gratefully 
acknowledge,"  continued  Mr.  Clarke  in  presenting  the  cup, 
"that  you  have  laid  the  foundation  for  scientific  and  beauti 
ful  park  building  throughout  this  country." 

Year  by  year  the  spell  of  the  past  grew  upon  him.  "Won 
derful,"  he  wrote,  "how  the  memory  goes  over,  and  re 
possesses,  and  re-populates  the  domain  of  early  child- years, 
as  the  frailties  of  age  press  on  one !  Never,  it  seems  to  me, 
in  all  these  seventy-one  years  which  have  drifted  by  me  since 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

I  strode  up  and  down  with  boyish  eagerness  in  my  father's 
garden,  have  I  been  able  to  recall  the  scenes,  the  beds,  the 
clumps  of  bushes,  the  strawberry  patches,  the  early  apple 
trees  and  their  respective  positions,  as  to-day,  when  my 
gouty  fingers  half-rebel  at  the  office  of  writing !  I  could,  I 
am  sure,  make  a  better  (because  truer  in  detail)  map  of  the 
garden — its  beds,  its  surfaces,  its  boundaries,  its  every 
compartment,  its  arbors,  to-day,  than  I  could  have  done 
thirty  years  ago,  when  only  forty  years  had  elapsed.  Why 
and  how  is  this  ?" 

The  fascination  of  the  past  did  not,  however,  stifle  the 
alertness  which  characterized  his  old  age.  He  delighted  in 
keeping  abreast  of  the  times,  in  following  the  rapid  advance 
of  knowledge.  The  latest  newspapers,  magazines,  and  books 
were  always  at  hand  in  the  library.  He  knew  the  most  re 
cent  developments  in  science,  religion,  and  literature,  and 
adjusted  himself  without  difficulty  to  enlarging  views  of  the 
universe.  The  pointed  annotations  which  he  was  accustomed 
to  make  in  his  volumes  have  given  me  some  notion  of  how 
thoroughly  he  read. 

As  the  shadows  lengthened,  he  fell  to  musing  upon  the 
deep  things  of  the  spirit,  and  felt  an  increased  awe  and  rever 
ence  growing  upon  him.  His  religion  became  simpler  and 
more  vital;  it  had,  in  fact,  long  been  growing  so;  he  valued 
increasingly  the  realization  of  religion  "in  loveliness  of  per 
fect  deeds/'  and  became  more  and  more  impatient  of  mere 
words.  "Sermons  should  not  surely  be  long  on  Thanks 
giving  Day;  but  short,  and  crisp,  and  keen,  and  clear,  and 
abounding  in  high  incentive  to  all  worthy  work,"  he  once 
wrote.1  "Let  us  get  over  the  idea,  too,  that  hearty  thanks- 

1  Under  pen-name  " Jno.  Crowquill,"  in  semi-weekly  edition  of  the  Tribune, 
New  York,  1881. 

382 


THE    LONG    TWILIGHT 

giving  can  only  come  out  and  declare  itself  in  long  prayer;  or 
that  any  specialty  of  attitude  or  utterance  will  cover  and 
exhaust  its  spirit.  It  finds  voice  in  every  man's  day-long 
and  week-long  cheeriness,  and  in  the  equanimity  and  the 
courage  with  which  he  battles  with  the  worst.  Right  man 
ful  and  sturdy  endeavor  in  all  needful  or  humane  work  of  any 
sort  is  in  itself  thanksgiving.  A  close  grip  on  duty  is  as  good 
as  a  'saying  of  grace/  More  and  more  the  monasticism  of 
mere  holy  utterance  is  giving  place  in  wise  men's  minds  to 
the  holy  helpfulness  in  all  ways  of  charity  and  mercy  that 
sublimes  the  tenor  of  a  life."  The  last  quarter-century  of 
his  life  was  but  a  growing  into  the  ideals  expressed  in  such 
a  passage. 

"What  can  be  better,"  he  asks  in  one  of  his  random 
notes,  "than  implicit  trust  in  the  Power  that  placed  us  here, 
and  that  will  reign  wherever  we  go  ?  What  weariness  of 
brain  and  heart  in  the  wastes  of  theologic  discussion  as  to 
what  may  be,  or  may  not  be !  In  regard  to  the  personality 
of  a  Supreme  Power,  or  about  our  own  relation  to  that  Power, 
what  can  we  know  save  that  the  one  is  dominant,  is  imma 
nent,  and  ceases  not;  and  the  other  beyond  all  reach  of 
thought  save  what  is  compassed  in  the  words,  'Our  Father'  ?" 
Many  pages  of  such  notes  bear  witness  to  the  frequency  of 
his  religious  meditations.  I  have  deciphered  several  others 
worthy  of  preservation: 

We  are  to  believe  in  immortality  because  there  is  a  sense  of 
incompleteness  about  life,  except  it  have  some  indefinite  extension. 
We  do  many  things  which  are  misunderstood,  though  the  act  is 
well-intentioned.  Except  there  be  a  future  where  such  things  are 
cleared  up,  where  "justice"  is  declared,  how  incomplete  and  un 
balanced  life  is !  Every  good  deed,  we  think,  must  have  its  good 

383 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

outcome;  but  how,  if  there  is  no  judgment  passed  upon  it,  no  recog 
nition  of  it,  no  ultimate  decision  of  the  point,  whether  it  be  good  or 
bad  ?  This  would  be  miserable  business  !  Not  to  know,  never  to 
be  known,  whether  right  is  right,  or  wrong,  wrong !  What  a 
hopeless,  dreary,  pointless  muddle  all  this  life  and  its  aims  would 
resolve  itself  into;  as  if,  indeed,  right  living,  right  thinking,  right 
actions,  never  had  consequence;  were  never  even  more  than  so 
much  chance  drifting  of  impulse,  of  occasion,  of  "happenings"  to 
you  or  me,  that  did  not  link  into  chains  of  intent,  of  dependence, 
stretching  from  far  away,  remote  inheritances,  and  reaching  to 
remotest,  dimmest  futurity,  where  justice  and  judgment  shall  be 
declared,  and  be  accepted,  and  reign  supremely! 

What  an  awful  change  simple,  absolute  honesty  would  make  in 
this  life !  And  if  anything  is  assured,  by  instruction  and  by  best 
psychologic  reckonings,  about  a  life  beyond  this,  it  is  the  faQt  that 
an  atmosphere  of  honesty  is  what  all  must  breathe  there — pinch 
as  it  may,  and  pinch  whom  it  may ! 

What  principle  of  segregation  shall  govern  the  sub-division  of 
the  great  army  of  the  sheep  and  of  the  goats  ?  Who  shall  make  for 
us  those  old-accredited  divisions  of  the  race,  into  the  very  good  and 
the  very  bad?  The  line  of  demarcation  will  not  be  so  sharp  and  so 
easily  and  clearly  defined  as  some  of  our  stolid  orthodox  preachers 
used  to  declare  with  brazen  utterance.  But  whatever  happens,  't  is 
certain  that  what  is  light  and  bright  and  warming  here,  will  be 
light  and  bright  in  regions  beyond  this;  and  what  is  dark  and  re 
pellent  and  ugly  and  deceitful  here,  will  wear  the  same  disguises  of 
shadow  in  another  world.  There  is  no  alchemy  in  death  that  will 
change  truth  into  untruth,  or  vice  versa. 

If  I  had  a  parish,  I  would  lay  out  subjects  for  every  Sunday  in 
the  year.  I  would  not  indulge  in  theological  disputation,  nor  try 
to  defend  dogmas,  nor  even  to  preach  morality;  but  I  would  try  to 
grasp  vital  subjects,  and  so  enwrap  them  with  our  hopes,  and  affec- 

384 


THE    LONG   TWILIGHT 

tions,  and  ambitions,  as  to  make  them  panoplies  of  faith,  and 
constant  urgents  or  determinants  of  good  works.  I  would  tell 
what  I  had  come  to  know  and  feel  of  the  fatherhood  of  God,  of  his 
determining  presence  with  us,  of  his  mystery,  or  of  the  mystery 
which  enwraps  all  earnest  thoughts  of  things  supreme  and  ever- 
during.  I  would  discuss  prayer,  conscious  and  unconscious;  and 
other  forms  of  spiritual  contact  with  Deity.  I  would  try  to  show 
that  it  is  needless  and  bootless  to  struggle  for  a  conception  of  Deity 
determinate  and  fixed;  that  to  attempt  to  arrive  at  such  a  concep 
tion  is  like  putting  the  tape-measure  with  which  we  estimate  cloth- 
widths,  to  a  mountain,  or  the  sky.  Why,  indeed,  is  such  a  con 
ception  important,  or  to  be  sought?  Can  words  or  thought  ever 
carry  us  beyond  the  actuality,  the  fact-concept  that  He  is,  and  He 
reigns?  The  greatest  word-master  can  only  put  tints  and  colors 
into  his  exhibit  of  Divine  quality;  and  what  painter  can  approach 
the  ineffable,  inexpressible  mystery  and  power  and  love  of  Him 
who  reigns? 

Now  and  then,  even  during  sleep,  such  musings  continued 
to  occupy  his  mind.  On  one  occasion  when  there  drifted 
through  his  consciousness  the  beautiful  words  of  Psalm 
127  :  2,  "He  giveth  his  beloved  sleep,"  there  came  to  him  the 
following  lines  which  he  wrote  down  upon  awaking: 

Is  it  morning  we  shall  see 
When  the  night  of  flesh  gives  out, 
When  life's  battle  ends  in  rout — 
Shall  we  call  it  morning,  then? 
Morning  such  as  mortal  men 
Know  not,  and  shall  never  know ! 
Mortal  eyes  can  never  see 
Dawning  of  the  "things  to  be." 
Shall  death  purge  us  of  the  dross 
That  now  films  our  eyes  across  ? 

385 


THE   LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

Meanwhile,  his  sense  of  humor  did  not  desert  him.  The 
incongruities  and  the  drolleries  of  life  amused  him  as  highly 
as  in  earlier  days.  He  still  delighted  in  wholesome  fun  and 
quick  repartee.  He  even  enjoyed  reference  to  the  grim 
realities  of  time.  "I  should  think  you  would  be  interested 
in  the  living  authors,  not  the  dead  ones,"  he  remarked  to  a 
visitor.  Among  his  notes,  I  find  this  passage:  "Old  Age! 
What  a  rum  title  for  a  book  or  a  booklet  in  which  to  show  how 
it  creeps  surely,  swiftly,  noiselessly — not  threateningly,  or 
with  clatter,  but  with  a  tread  like  the  interposed  lap  of 
mountains  in  a  picture — scarce  showing  fissures  or  joinings; 
its  big,  dominating  swells  hiding  small  intervals,  but  piling, 
lifting,  and  taking  ice  in  their  gulches !" 

Time  and  strength  sufficed  for  the  completion  of  one  more 
task.  Late  in  1906  the  Scribners  planned  to  have  Mr. 
Mitchell  supervise  a  final  issue  of  his  writings,  a  work  to 
which  the  veteran  author  looked  forward  with  satisfaction 
and  pleasure.  His  old  modesties,  however,  clung  to  him  to 
the  last.  Remonstrating  against  the  plan  of  his  publishers 
to  use  the  expression,  "The  Works  of  Donald  G.  Mitchell,0 
he  wrote  (July  i8th,  1907):  "Unless  there  be  good  reason  to 
the  contrary,  couldn't  'The  Works'  be  dropped?  'The 
Works'  seems  to  me  a  little  pompous  and  pretentious." 

For  more  than  a  year  the  fifteen  volumes  of  this  Edge- 
wood  edition  were  in  process  of  making.  The  task  had  to  be 
accommodated  to  Mr.  Mitchell's  pace.  "Pray  excuse  me  if 
I  work  very  slowly,"  he  wrote  to  his  publishers,  November 
1st,  1906.  "Age  has  a  hard  grip  upon  me,  under  which  mole 
hills  turn  to  mountains.  ...  I  half  doubt  (especially 
after  morning  hours  are  gone)  if  the  work  is  worth  doing  at 
all !  Some  sort  of  preface  for  the  series  (to  go  in  Fresh 
Gleanings)  I  will  write  before  many  days."  Months  passed, 

386 


THE    LONG    TWILIGHT 

the  preface  remained  unwritten,  and  the  publishers  were  in 
despair.  In  reply  to  a  personal  appeal  from  Mr.  Charles 
Scribner,  Mr.  Mitchell  wrote  the  following  letter,  almost  the 
last  with  reference  to  literary  matters  which  came  from  his 
pen: 

Edgewood,  4th  August  1907. 
Dear  Mr.  Scribner, 

Your  kind  letter  of  recent  date  came  duly.  I  have  tried  hard  to 
put  my  mind  to  the  little  task  you  propose;  but  still,  as  many  times 
before,  my  mind  is  laggard,  and  won't  find  fit  words  for  the  occa 
sion.  I  know  you've  reason  to  be  annoyed,  but  you  haven't  made 
proper  allowance  for  the  burden  of  years.  My  daughters  try  to 
put  me  up  to  the  work,  and  say  all  manner  of  kind  and  provocative 
things;  but — the  needed  words  stay.  I  will  try  again  next  week, 
and  should  you  fail  to  receive  somewhat  by  Thursday  or  Friday, 
put  me  down  as  incorrigible  and  preface-less. 

Very  truly  yours, 

Bond  G.  Mitchell. 

Try  again  he  did,  and  the  copy  for  the  preface  went  forward 
to  New  York  City  on  August  loth.  We  should  all  be  sorry 
to  have  been  deprived  of  that  delightful  farewell.  I  am  in 
clined  to  think  that  every  one  who  reads  those  seven  pages  of 
prefatory  matter  will  agree  that  "the  shaky  and  uncertain 
forces  which  beleaguer  a  man  well  steeped  in  the  'eighties,'" 
in  no  way  obscured  the  charm  and  the  grace  of  Mr.  Mitchell's 
style. 

The  publishers  had  undertaken  the  Edgewood  edition 
none  too  soon.  Had  the  work  been  delayed  another  twelve 
month,  it  could  not  have  received  the  personal  attention  of 
the  author.  Providence,  however,  had  been  kind.  There 
had  been  no  shortening  of  the  twilight.  Time  and  strength 
sufficient  unto  the  task  had  been  allotted;  and  even  yet  for 

387 


THE    LIFE   OF    DONALD   G.    MITCHELL 

Mr.  Mitchell  a  season  of  quiet  rest  and  contemplation  re 
mained.  There  were,  though,  no  more  ambitious  hopes,  no 
more  sturdy  plans.  Life's  work  had  rounded  into  the 
evening  that  shortens  labor. 


388 


XX 

THE  END 

And  as  he  looks  forward  .  .  .  there  is  something  in  the  thought 
of  lying  at  last  under  the  trees  that  grow  old  and  die,  and  spring 
again,  and  beside  the  brooks  that  murmur  softly,  as  they  did  when 
he  was  young,  and  as  they  will  do  when  his  body  is  dust,  which  rec 
onciles  him  even  to  the  grave;  and  which  carries  his  hope  from  the 
trees  and  the  brooks  up  to  that  Power  whose  wisdom  and  strength 
they  adorn,  and  whose  mercy  and  goodness  they  show  forth  con 
tinually. — The  Lorgnette,  2.174. 

During  the  first  seven  months  of  1908,  Mr.  Mitchell  en 
joyed  the  quiet  routine  of  Edgewood.  His  zest  for  the  out- 
of  doors  was  as  keen  as  ever,  and,  if  strength  at  all  permitted, 
no  day  passed  without  its  walk  or  drive.  But  "the  feeble 
ness  and  half-invalidism"  which  he  characterized  as  "the 
normal  rest  of  the  eighties,"  were  perceptibly  growing  upon 
him.  He  tired  more  quickly;  he  rested  more  frequently  on 
his  library  couch.  And  yet  through  all  he  continued  to  en 
joy  life.  One  bit  of  recognition  came  just  not  too  late.  On 
the  loth  of  August  the  Edgewood  Civic  Association  made 
him  its  first  honorary  member;  "for  giving  us  the  name  of 
Edgewood,  and  recording  in  permanent  literature  the  at 
tractive  features  of  this  part  of  New  Haven;  for  his  pioneer 
efforts  to  promote  architectural  and  landscape  beauty  upon 
private  places  and  in  public  parks;  and  for  his  delightful 
agricultural  and  literary  essays,"  are  the  words  which  con 
veyed  the  reason  for  the  action. 

389 


THE    LIFE    OF    DONALD    G.    MITCHELL 

August  was  nearing  its  meridian  when  the  change  came. 
On  the  morning  of  the  I3th,  Mr.  Mitchell,  in  cheerful  mood, 
had  taken  a  drive  over  the  familiar  hills  in  company  with  one 
of  his  daughters.  After  dining  he  had,  as  was  his  custom, 
gone  into  the  library  to  rest.  The  stroke  came  swiftly. 
Within  an  hour  after  he  had  lain  down,  there  came  a  hemor 
rhage — the  opening  of  some  old  wound  in  the  lung,  so  the 
physicians  thought — and  he  recognized  that  death  could  not 
be  far  off. 

The  beauty  and  the  serenity  of  twilight  now  deepened 
into  shadow.  Long  before,  in  Dream  Life,  the  young  author 
had  looked  forward  to  the  end.  "Hoary  age,  crowned  with 
honor  and  with  years,  bears  no  immunity  from  suffering. 
This  is  the  common  heritage  of  us  all;  if  it  come  not  in  the 
spring,  or  in  the  summer  of  our  day,  it  will  surely  find  us  in 
the  autumn,  or  amid  the  frosts  of  winter."  And  so  it  was 
that  in  the  winter  of  his  life  the  storms  came  upon  him.  The 
sudden  attack  of  illness  resulted  in  a  clouding  of  his  mind. 
A  long  life  of  unusual  mental  activity  had  worn  out  the  deli 
cate  mechanism  of  the  brain,  although  the  strong  vital  flame 
yet  burned  within  the  body.  For  months  the  man  who  had 
taught  the  world  to  love  him,  wandered  in  a  dreamy  maze, 
brightened  now  and  then  by  flashes  of  the  old  and  charming 
manner.  Most  of  the  time  he  did  not  recognize  those  about 
him.  Again,  he  seemed  half  conscious  of  his  surroundings. 
Sometimes,  as  he  stood  at  the  library  window  and  gazed  out 
over  lawn  and  hedge,  he  spoke  softly  to  himself:  "I  used  to 
know  this  place,  and  it  was  beautiful.  Yes,  I  believe  I 
planted  those  trees  and  flowers. " 

He  was  cared  for  with  an  affection  and  a  tenderness 
taught  by  the  example  of  his  own  life.  With  loved  ones 
around  him  he  died  about  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening,  De- 

390 


THE    END 

cember  I5th,  1908,  in  the  library  which  for  those  many  years 
had  been  his  retreat  "  from  paine  and  wearisome  turmoyle." 
The  blaze  of  a  wood-fire  on  the  open  hearth  illuminated  the 
calm  face  and  the  snowy  hair  of  the  Master  of  Edgewood 
as  he  lay  in  the  quiet  of  death. 

In  accordance  with  his  own  wish  the  funeral  was  entirely 
private.  The  peaceful  atmosphere  of  home  encircled  him  to 
the  last,  and  he  was  borne  from  Edgewood  by  the  kindly 
hands  of  sons  and  grandsons.  On  the  ijth  of  December,  he 
was  buried  in  the  Woodbridge  cemetery  in  a  lot  chosen  by 
himself  and  planted  by  his  own  hands  with  tree  and  vine  and 
hedge.  A  simple  stone  marks  his  grave — the  granite  bearing 
words  in  lettering  of  his  own  design: 

DONALD  G.  MITCHELL 

1822-1908. 

There,  overlooking  the  beautiful  Woodbridge  hills,  which  he 
loved  with  undying  affection,  he  lies  beside  his  wife  and 
his  sons  Pringle  and  James  Alfred. 


39' 


APPENDIX 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

In  the  following  chronological  list  of  Mr.  Mitchell's  writings 
the  names  of  all  books  or  pamphlets  are  set  in  italics.  Contribu 
tions  to  newspapers  and  magazines  are  in  Roman  type.  The  list 
is  complete  so  far  as  books  and  pamphlets  are  concerned.  It  is 
incomplete  otherwise,  but  it  is  believed  that  all  really  important 
items  are  given. 

For  the  first  three  years  all  the  contributions  except  the  last 
entry  under  1841  appeared  in  the  Yale  Literary  Magazine. 

1839 

The  Heir  of  Lichstenstein.     A  Sketch.     (August),  4.458-463. 
Sketches  of  Real  Life,  or  Scraps  from  a  Doctor's  Diary. 
No.  i.     The  Victim  of  Fear.     (December),  5.66-78. 

1840 

Sketches  of  Real  Life,  or  Scraps  from  a  Doctor's  Diary. 

No.  2.     Unsuccessful  Love.     (January),  139-148. 

No.  3.     Unsuccessful  Love.     (February),  191-202. 
James  Fenimore  Cooper.     (March),  249-259. 
To  our  Readers.     (June),  353-355. 
Bulwer.     (June),  356-365. 

Thoughts  upon  Novel  Reading.     (July),  438-444. 
Epilegomena.     (July),  445-448. 
More  Scraps  from  my  Diary. 

A  Night  in  the  Hospital.     (August),  487-491. 

A  Chapter  in  a  Life.     (August),  492-495. 
Sir  Walter  Scott.     (November),  6.1-10. 
Fragment.     Verse.     (November),  25. 
Epilegomena.     (November),  42-44. 
The  Mirror,  or  Tablets  of  an  Idle  Man. 

Part  i.      (November),  26-34. 

Part  ii.     (December),  65-73. 

1841 

The  Mirror,  or  Tablets  of  an  Idle  Man. 

Part  iii.        (January),  100-109. 

Part  iv.        (February),  160-169. 

Part  v.         (May),  261-272. 
A  Chapter  in  a  Life.     (January),  126-133. 
Burke  and  Newton.     (May),  237-250. 

The  Dignity  of  Learning.     A  Valedictory  Oration.      New  Haven.     Printed 
by  B.  L.  Hamlen. 

395 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1842 

Frank  Upton.     A  Story.     Knickerbocker  (June),  19.507-516. 
Field  Sports.     North  American  Review  (October),  55.343-372. 
Plans  of  Farm  Buildings.     Illustrated.     Transactions  of  the  New  York  State 
Agricultural  Society,  125-130. 

1843 

Landscape  Gardening  and   Rural  Architecture.     New   Englander   (April), 
1.203-215. 

1844 

The  Fashionable  Monthlies.     New  Englander  (January),  2.96-105. 
Correspondence.     Cultivator  (December),  1.365. 

1845 

Notes  upon  Letters.    American  Review  (January),  1.60-74. 
Correspondence.     Cultivator. 

(February),  2.53-54. 

(March),  98-99. 

(April),  120-121. 

(May),  138-139- 

(June),  172-173. 

(July),  2OI-2O2. 

(August),  236-237. 

(September),  268-269. 

(October),  300-301. 

(November),  330-331. 

Correspondence.  New  York  Commercial  Advertiser.  Letters  from  the  places 
indicated  appear  in  the  issues  of  this  newspaper  as  dated.  These  letters, 
with  the  exception  of  the  third,  are  signed  "Don." 

From  London,  April  17. 

From  Windsor,  April  24. 

From  Liverpool,  May  14. 

From  Dublin,  May  20. 

From  Dove  Valley,  Derbyshire,  May  30. 

From  London,  June  2. 

From  Sheffield,  July  28. 

1846 

Correspondence.     Cultivator  (February),  3.50. 
Notes  by  the  Road.     American  Review,  as  under: 

No.  i.       Of  What  it  Costs,  and  How  it  Costs.     (February),  4.145-158. 

No.  ii.      How  One  Lives  in  Paris.     (October),  377-388. 

No.  iii.     A  Glimpse  of  the  Apennines.     (November),  449-458. 

No.  iv.     From  the  Elbe  to  the  Zuyder  Zee.     (December),  588-599. 
Letter  from  Washington.     Morning  Courier  and  New  York  Enquirer,  Decem 
ber  17.     (Later  this  was  classed  as  one  of  the  "Capitol  Sketches";  but  the 

396 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

numbering  began  with  iii.     This  letter  was  the  first  of  Mr.  Mitchell's 
writings  to  bear  the  signature  "Ik  Marvel.") 
Capitol  Sketches.     Morning  Courier  and  New  York  Enquirer. 

Unnumbered.      December  24. 

No.  iii.  December  29. 

No.  iv.  December  31. 

1847 

Capitol  Sketches.     Morning  Courier  and  New  York  Enquirer. 

No.  v.        January  7. 

No.  vi.       January  12. 

No.  vii.      January  16. 

No.  viii.     January  23. 

No.  ix.       February  3. 

No.  x.        February  10. 

No.  xi.       February  26. 

No.  xii.      April  17. 

No.  xiii.     April  28. 

The  Marvel  Letters — New  Series.  Morning  Courier  and  New  York  Enquirer. 
Fourteen  letters  published  as  under: 

From  Saratoga,  July  21,  28,  29,  August  5,  9,  10,  18,  19. 

From  Sharon  Pavilion,  August  25. 

From  Sharon,  September  i. 

From  Richfield  Springs,  September  7. 

From  Trenton  Falls,  September  n. 

From  Avon  Springs,  New  York,  September  29. 

From  Astor  House,  October  15. 

Rural  Notices  Abroad.     Cultivator. 

No.  i.         Royal  Veterinary  School  at  Alfort.     Agricultural  Implements 

of  France.     (January),  4.12. 

No.  ii.        Rome  and  its  Environs.     (February),  46. 
No.  iii.       The  Campagna  about  Rome.     (April),  107. 
No.  iv.       Italian  Agriculture.     (May),  139. 
No.  v.       Tuscan  Agriculture.     (June),  188. 
No.  vi.       Lombardy.     (July),  222. 
No.  vii.      French  Farming.     (September),  269. 
No.  viii.     A  French  Village.     (October),  306. 
No.  ix.       Wines  and  Vineyards  of  France.     (November),  337. 
No.  x.        Wines  of  France.     (December),  371. 

Notes  by  the  Road. 

No.  v.    The  Illyrian  Cavern.    American  Review  (January),  5.17-25. 

Landscape  Gardening.     American  Review  (March),  5.295-306. 

Fresh  Gleanings.  New  York.  Harper  &  Brothers.  The  first  edition  of 
this  book  was  issued  in  two  forms — the  one  in  two  volumes  with  paper 
covers;  the  other  in  one  volume  cloth.  A  long  and  appreciative  notice  of 
the  volume  was  published  in  the  American  Review  (August),  6.208-217. 
It  was  probably  written  by  George  H.  Colton. 

397 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


1848 

Le  Petit  Soulier.  Graham's  Magazine  (March),  165-171. 
The  Marvel  Letters  from  Abroad.  Morning  Courier  and  New  York  Enquirer. 
Thirty  letters  form  this  series.  They  were  printed  first  in  the  daily,  later 
in  the  weekly  and  the  semiweekly,  editions.  The  numbering  of  the  letters 
as  published  is  not  accurate.  In  the  list  below,  the  number  originally 
printed  before  each  letter  is  given  without  correction.  The  date  following 
the  title  of  each  letter  is  that  of  the  issue  of  the  daily  edition  in  which  it 
appears. 

No.  i.       From  London.     No  subtitle.     June  29. 

No.  ii.      London.     The  Chartists.     July  3. 

No.  iii.     Paris.     Character  and  Evidences  of  the  Change  in  France. 

July  ii. 

Unnumbered.     Paris.     The  Four  Days  of  June.     July  14. 
No.  v.     Paris.     After  the  Insurrection.     July  14. 
Unnumbered.     Paris.     Causes  and  Abettors   of   the   Revolt   of   June. 

July  27. 

No.  vii.        Paris.     A  Street  View.     July  31. 
Unnumbered.     Paris.     No  subtitle,  but  dated  July  I3th  and  i8th,  1848. 

July  31- 

No.  ix.         Paris.     The  French  not  Fit  for  a  Republic.     August  5. 
No.  viii.       Paris.     Fails  Divers.     August  8. 
No.  x.          Paris.     No  subtitle.     August  18. 
No.  xi.         Paris.     No  subtitle.     August  22. 

No.  xii.        Paris.     The    Elements   of    Discord:    the    Italian    Question. 
August  29. 

No  subtitle.     September  12. 

The  Italian  Question.     September  13. 

The  Constitution  and  the  Siege.     September  27. 

The  Approaching  Elections.     October  3. 

The  Elections.     October  7. 

The  Election.     October  12. 

Another  Street  View.     October  18. 

Threatenings.     October  20. 

A  Storm  in  the  Assembly.     October  21. 

A  Glance  at  the  Assembly.     October  27. 

Pictures  from  the  Provinces.     December  5. 

Fete  of  Constitution.     December  13. 


No.  xiii. 

Paris. 

No.  xiv. 

Paris. 

No.  xv. 

Paris. 

No.  xvi. 

Paris. 

No.  xvii. 

Paris. 

No.  xviii. 

Paris. 

No.  xiv. 

Paris. 

No.  xix. 

Paris. 

No.  xx. 

Paris. 

No.  xxi. 

Paris. 

No.  xxii. 

Paris. 

No.  xxiii. 

Paris. 

Unnumbered. 
A  Man  Overboard. 

14.10-11. 
A  Ride  in  the  Rain. 


Paris.     Glimpse  at  the  French  Chamber.     December  29. 
By  Ik  Marvel.     Southern  Literary  Messenger  (January), 

By  Ik  Marvel.     Ibid.  (April),  14.209-211. 


1849 

The  Marvel  Letters  from  Abroad.     Morning  Courier  and  Nev)  York  Enquirer. 
No.  xxvii.      Paris.     Days  of  Election.     January  4. 
No.  xxviii.     Paris.     Talk  of  the  Day.     January  12. 
No.  xxix.       Paris.     The  Change.     January  19. 
No.  xxx.        A  Closing  Glimpse  at  the  Present  and  the  Past.  February  10. 

398 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  Streets.     By  Ik  Marvel.     An  extract  from  the  as  yet  unpublished  Battle 

Summer.     Southern  Literary  Messenger  (August),  15.499-501. 
Ik  Marvel  at  Home.     A  letter  from  Newport,  Rhode  Island,  dated  September 

4th,  1849.     Morning  Courier  and  New  York  Enquirer,  September  12. 
A  Bachelor's  Reverie.      By  Ik  Marvel.      (The  three  parts,  Smoke — Blaze — 

Ashes.)     Southern  Literary  Messenger  (September),  15.601-609. 
City  and  Salon.     By   Ik   Marvel.     Another  extract  from  the  unpublished 

Battle  Summer.     Ibid.  (December),  15.722-724. 

1850 

The  Battle  Summer.  New  York.  Baker  &  Scribner.  This  book  is  not  made 
up  of  the  letters  contributed  to  the  Courier  and  Enquirer,  but  of  material 
relating  to  an  earlier  period  than  that  covered  by  those  letters.  The  book 
went  on  the  market  December  2ist,  1849,  but  bore  date  of  1850  on  title- 
page. 

A  Bachelor's  Reverie.  Over  Sea-coal  and  Anthracite.  By  Ik  Marvel. 
Southern  Literary  Messenger  (March),  16.162-171. 

A  Bachelor's  Reverie.  Reprint  from  the  Southern  Literary  Messenger  of  Sep 
tember  1849,  in  large  octavo,  40  pages.  Privately  printed  by  George  Wym- 
berley  Jones,  at  Wormsloe,  near  Savannah,  Georgia.  Twelve  copies  only 
were  issued.  Colophon  in  Old  English. 

The  Lorgnette.  A  series  of  yellow-covered  pamphlets.  The  numbers  of  the 
first  series  are  dated  January  20,  30,  February  7,  14,  21,  28,  March  7,  14,  28, 
April  4,  u,  and  24,  respectively.  Those  of  the  second  series,  May  10,  25, 
June  10,  24,  July  8,  20,  August  4,  18,  31,  September  n,  25,  and  October  9, 
respectively.  Henry  Kernot  was  ostensibly  the  publisher  to  the  end  of  the 
first  series.  The  second  series  bore  the  imprint  of  Stringer  &  Townsend, 
New  York.  Within  the  year  the  two  series  were  issued  in  book  form,  two 
volumes,  by  Stringer  &  Townsend.  The  illustrations  were  by  F.  O.  C. 
Darley;  tail-pieces  by  Donald  G.  Mitchell. 

The  Roman  Girl.  By  Ik  Marvel.  Southern  Literary  Messenger  (December), 
16.717-719. 

Reveries  of  a  Bachelor.  New  York.  Baker  &  Scribner.  This  volume  in 
cluded  material  previously  printed  in  the  Southern  Literary  Messenger; 
the  remainder  had  not  been  published  before. 

1851 
A  New  Preface  to  the  fourth  edition  of  The  Lorgnette.     In  this  preface,  signed 

Ik  Marvel,  the  authorship  of  the  work  was  first  virtually  acknowledged. 
Editor's  Easy  Chair.     Harper's  Magazine. 
(October),  3.707-709. 
(November),  849-851. 
(December),  4.131-133. 
Dream  Life.     New  York.     Charles  Scribner. 

1852 

Editor's  Easy  Chair.     Harper's  Magazine. 
(January),  4.265-267. 
(February),  418-420. 
(March),  563-565. 

399 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

(April),  702-704. 
(May),  843-847. 
(June),  5.126-131. 
(July),  265-270. 
(August),  411-416. 
(September),  552-557- 
(October),  702-705. 
(November),  842-847. 
(December),  6.128-132. 

The  Fudge  Papers:  Being  the  Observations  at  Home  and  Abroad  of  Divers 
Members  of  the  Fudge  Family.     Rendered  into  Writing  by  Tony  Fudge. 
Knickerbocker  Magazine. 
(January),  39.48-56. 
(February),  163-170. 
(April),  352-359. 
(May),  448-456. 
(July),  40.56-64. 
(August),  143-151. 
(October),  308-314. 
(December),  512-525. 

1853 
Editor's  Easy  Chair.     Harper's  Magazine. 

(January),  6.269-275. 

(February),  419-422. 

(March),  558-562. 

(April),  703-706. 

(May),  847-850. 

(June),  7-129-133. 

(July),  272-273. 

(August),  418-420. 

(September),  556-561. 
The  Fudge  Papers.     Knickerbocker  Magazine, 

(January),  41.1-10. 

(May),  426-433- 

(June),  529-536. 

(September),  42.274-281. 

(December),  567-573. 

1854 
The  Fudge  Papers.    Knickerbocker  Magazine. 

(February),  43.123-133. 

(March),  286-292. 

(May),  452-456. 

(June),  580-586. 

(July),  44.50-57. 

(September),  227-234. 

(October),  337~354- 

(November),  460-477. 
Studies  for  a  Picture  of  Venice.    Harper's  Magazine  (July),  9.186-196. 

400 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1855 

Fudge  Doings.  A  reissue  of  The  Fudge  Papers  in  two  volumes.  New  York. 
Charles  Scribner. 

Some  Account  of  a  Consulate.     Harper's  (April),  10.628-639. 

A  Dessert  Dish  for  Travellers.     Ibid.  (July),  11.242-246. 

The  Bride  of  the  Ice-King.  A  Tale  printed  in  The  Knickerbocker  Gallery: 
A  Testimonial  to  [L.  Gaylord  Clark)  the  Editor  of  The  Knickerbocker 
Magazine,  39-57.  New  York.  Samuel  Hueston.  348  Broadway. 

1857 

Two  Days  on  the  Erie  Road.     Harper's  (February),  14.398-400. 
Mr.  Quigley's  Experience.     Ibid.  (July),  15.203-207. 

1858 

Agricultural  Address.  Delivered  before  the  Connecticut  State  Agricultural 
Society,  at  Bridgeport,  October  I5th,  1857.  Published  by  the  Society, 
1858. 

Address  at  Twenty-fifth  Anniversary  of  Alpha  Delta  Phi,  June  25th,  1857. 
Printed  in  Alpha  Delta  Phi,  14-37. 

1859 

Mr.  Sharply  Again.     Harper's  (March),  18.522-525. 

Bi-Centennial  Address.  Given  on  the  Green,  Norwich,  Connecticut,  Sep 
tember  8.  First  printed  in  The  Norwich  Jubilee,  compiled  and  published 
by  John  W.  Stedman,  Norwich,  1859. 

1860 
Hints  About  Farming.     New  Englander  (November),  18.889-907. 

1863 

My  Farm  of  Edgewood.     New  York.     Charles  Scribner. 
Wet  Weather  Work.     Atlantic  Monthly. 

(April),  11.444-454. 

(June),  719-730. 

(August),  12.183-194. 

(November),  617-625. 
A  New  Preface  to  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor. 
A  New  Preface  to  Dream  Life.    September. 

1864 

Wet  Weather  Work.     Atlantic  Monthly. 

(March),  13.304-312. 

(May),  539-550. 

(July),  I4.39-5L 

(September),  333~347- 

Washington  Irving.     Ibid.  (June),  13.694-701. 
Seven  Stories.     New  York.     Charles  Scribner. 

4OI 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1865 

Pomologists  and  Common  People.     Horticulturist,  January. 

Lackland  Makes  a  Beginning.     Ibid.,  March. 

Lackland's  House  Plans.     Ibid.,  May. 

Lackland's  Gardener.     Ibid.,  July. 

A  Pig  and  a  Cow.     Ibid.,  August. 

On  Gateways.     Ibid.,  September. 

Gateways  Again;  and  Rural  Carpentry.     Ibid.,  October. 

Village  and  Country  Roadside.     Ibid.,  November. 

Doctor  Johns.     Atlantic  Monthly. 

(February),  15.141-151. 

(March),  296-308. 

(April),  449-467- 

(May),  591-602. 

(June),  681-692. 

(July),  16.66-77. 

(August),  2 1 1-22 1. 

(September),  300-310. 
(October),  457-468. 
(November),  546-556. 
(December),  713-723- 

Wet  Days  at  Edgewood.     New  York.     Charles  Scribner.     The  Wet  Weathei 
Work  papers  from  the  Atlantic,  in  book  form. 

1866 
Doctor  Johns.    Atlantic  Monthly. 

(January),  17.69-80. 

(February),  204-214. 

(March),  323~333- 

(April),  466-478. 

(May),  552-564- 

(June),  707-720. 

On  Not  Doing  All  at  Once.     Horticulturist,  January. 
De  Rebus  Ruris.     Hours  at  Home. 

No.  i.     An  Old  Style  Farm.     (June),  3.101-108. 

No.  2.     English  and  American  Wayside.     (July),  197-205. 

No.  3.     Mr.  Urban  and  Fifty  Acres.     (August),  347-354. 

No.  4.     Fifty  Acres  Again:  A  Commission  of  Inquiry.     (September), 

447-454. 

No.  5.     A  Country  House.     (November),  4.1-7. 

Doctor  Johns.     New  York.     Charles  Scribner  and  Company.     In  two  vol 
umes.     Reprinted  from  the  Atlantic. 

1867 
De  Rebus  Ruris.     Hours  at  Home. 

No.  6.     On  the  Laying  Out  of  Grounds.     (February),  4.306-313. 
No.  7.     Village  Greens  and  Railway  Gardens.     (March),  429-436. 
No.  8.     Parks,  Gardens,  and  Graves.     (April),  538-544. 

402 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

A  Talk  About  Porches.     Horticulturist,  March. 

Rural  Studies.     New  York.     Charles  Scribner  &  Co.     The  Horticulturist  and 
the  Hours  at  Home  papers  in  book  form. 


1868 

A  Talk  About  the  Year.     Atlantic  Almanac.     In  1868  the  names  of  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  and  Donald  G.  Mitchell  appear  as  editors  of  the  Almanac. 
Winter  Talk,  15-17. 
Spring  Talk,  31-33. 
Summer  Talk,  35-37. 
Autumn  Talk,  53-57. 

Our  Heading  and  Our  Hopes.    This  unsigned  article  is  Mr.  Mitchell's  initial 
editorial  in  the  first  number  of  Hearth  and  Home,  December  26. 

1869 

Pictures  of  Edgewood.  New  York.  Charles  Scribner  and  Company. 
Hearth  and  Home.  Mr.  Mitchell's  chief  contribution  to  this  journal,  apart 
from  his  regular  editorial  work,  was  a  series  of  papers  entitled  "Wilkerson's 
Journal,"  the  diary  and  observations  of  one  "Abijah  Wilkerson."  In  a 
note  Mr.  Mitchell  says:  "I  thought  seriously  of  extending  and  publishing 
[the  "Journal"]  in  book  form.  I  still  regard  it  (1902)  as  one  of  the  best 
things  I  ever  did."  The  instalments  of  "Wilkerson's  Journal"  appeared 
as  follows: 

January  23. 

February  6,  13,  27. 

March  6,  13,  20,  27. 

April  3,  10,  24. 

May  i,  8,  15,  22,  29. 

June  5,  12,  19. 

July  3,  10,  17,  24,  31. 

August  7,  14,  21,  28. 

September  4,  n,  18,  25. 

October  9,  16,  23,  30. 

November  6,  13,  20,  27. 

December  n,  18,  25. 

The  articles  marked  *  constitute  a  gleaning  from  unsigned  editorial  matter 
which  was  doubtless  written  by  Mr.  Mitchell: 

*  A  Farmer's  House,  January  2. 

*  A  New  Year's  Talk. 

*  Valentine  Day,  February  13. 

*  A  Library  Window,  February  20. 

*  Something  About  School- Books. 

*  Of  School-Rooms,  February  27. 

*  Mammon  Overrides  Chanty,  March  6. 

*  Our  Advisers,  March  13. 

*  Forbidden  Topics  Which  Interest  Everybody,  March  27. 

*  Another  Library  Window,  May  I. 

403 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

*  Mr.  Raymond,  July  3. 

*  Octave  Feuillet,  July  10. 

*  Amused  With  Cost,  July  17. 

*  New  Englandism  and  Oldtown  Folks,  July  24. 

*  John  Stuart  Mill,  August  14. 

*  At  the  Springs:  Saratoga,  August  28. 

*  Something  Besides  Gold,  October  9. 

*  Autumn  Search  for  Homes,  November  6. 

*  What  Does  Social  Science  Mean  ?     November  13. 

*  Mr.  Greeley  as  Woodsman,  November  20. 

*  George  Peabody. 

*  A  Thanksgiving,  November  27. 

*  A  Year's  End,  December  18. 

*  A  Flavor  of  Christmas,  December  25. 

Articles  in  Atlantic  Almanac.    This  year  Mr.   Mitchell  alone  edited   the 
Almanac. 
Fireside,  3-7. 
Roadside,  16-20. 
Brookside,  25-28. 
Side  by  Side,  37-40. 

1870 

Wilkerson's  Journal.     Hearth  and  Home. 
January  I,  15,  22,  29. 
February  19,  26. 
March  5,  12,  19,  26. 
April  2,  9,  16,  23,  30. 
May  21,  28. 
June  n,  18. 
July  9,  16,  23,  30. 
August  6,  20,  27. 
September  10,  17,  24. 

*  Anno  Domini,  January  I. 

*  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  January  8. 

*  Dictionaries. 

*  Queen  Victoria. 

*  Town  and  Country  Roads,  March  12. 

*  A  Plea  for  Flowers,  April  2. 

*  Road-side  Trees,  April  23. 

*  Thomas  Carlyle,  May  28. 

*  Death  of  Mr.  Dickens,  June  25. 

*  Reminiscences  of  Mr.  Dickens,  July  2. 

*  The  Fourth,  July  9. 

*  A  Word  About  Athletic  Sports,  July  16. 

*  The  War,  August  27. 

*  France,  September  24. 

*  Thomas  Hughes. 

Charles  Dickens.     Hours  at  Home  (August),  11.363-368. 

404 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1871 

On  Some  of  the  Relations  of  Science  to  Farm  Practice.  An  address  before  the 
American  Dairymen's  Association,  at  Utica,  New  York,  January  nth. 
Sixth  Annual  Report  of  the  Association,  59-74. 

1873 

Who  Wrote  the  Arabian  Nights?    St.  Nicholas,  November. 
How  a  Tinker  Wrote  a  Novel.     Ibid.,  December. 

1874 

Christmas  Angels.     St.  Nicholas,  January. 
About  Some  Queer  Little  People.     Ibid.,  March. 
Who  Printed  the  First  Bible?     Ibid.,  April. 
Nice  Old  Gentleman.     Ibid.,  June. 
Fifty  Pounds  Reward !     Ibid.,  September. 

1875 
Dark  Bit  of  History.     St.  Nicholas,  November. 

1876 

Fences  and  Division  of  Farm  Land.  An  address  before  the  Connecticut 
Board  of  Agriculture,  West  Winsted,  Connecticut,  December  i6th,  1875. 
Ninth  Annual  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Connecticut  Board  of  Agri 
culture,  171-186.  Hartford,  1876. 

1877 

The  Farmer's  Homestead,  and  its  Relation  to  Farm  Thrift.     An  address  before 
the  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  Worcester,  Massachusetts,  November  I5th, 
1876.     Twenty-fourth  Annual  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  State  Board  of 
Agriculture,  131-141.     Boston,  1877. 
Ivanhoe.     St.  Nicholas,  May. 
Two  French  Story-Tellers.     Ibid.,  October. 
About  Old  Story-Tellers.     New  York.     Scribner,  Armstrong  &  Co. 

The  frontispiece  is  from  a  photograph  of  Mr.  Mitchell's  son,  James  Alfred 

Mitchell. 

A  Series  of  Agricultural  Articles.    Semi- Weekly  edition  New  York  Tribune, 
August  to  October.    A  few  titles  of  articles  as  under: 
Help  in  the  Spade. 
The  Potato  Beetle's  Progress. 
Government  Supervision. 
Not  Wholly  Unconnected  with  Beans. 
Asking  Advice. 
About  Advice  Once  More. 
The  Colorado  Beetle  in  England. 

405 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Woman-Farming. 

Some  Good  in  Bad  Times. 

"Mons.  Tonson  Come  Again!" 

"Be  Steady"— Some  Thoughts  of  an  Old-Fashioned  Virtue. 

1881 

A  Series  of  Agricultural  Articles.  All  are  signed,  "By  Jno.  Crowquill." 
Semi- Weekly  edition  New  York  Tribune,  August  to  December.  A  few  titles 
of  articles  as  under: 

A  Townsman's  Inclinations. 
Premiums  for  Poles. 
Our  Farm  Thanksgiving. 
Christmas  in  the  Country. 
Our  Country  Roads. 

1882 

From  Lobby  to  Peak.  A  series  of  illustrated  articles  in  Our  Continent,  as 
under: 

On  the  Threshold.     (February  15),  1.5. 

A  Lobby.     (February  22),  21. 

Halls.     (March  i),  37. 

An  Early  Breakfast.     (March  15),  69. 

Round  About  the  Room.     (March  22),  85. 

Round  About  Again.     (March  29),  101. 

Over  the  Mantel.     (April  5),  117. 

In  the  Library.     (April  12),  132. 

Between  Rooms.     (April  19),  148. 

A  Library  Corner.     (May  3),  185. 

A  Rolling  Screen.     (May  17),  217. 

Yale  Forty  Years  Ago.     Our  Continent  (February  22),  25. 
A  Report  to  the  Commissioners  on  Lay-out  of  East  Rock  Park.     New  Haven. 
L.  S.  Punderson,  Printer  and  Lithographer. 

1883 

The  Woodbridge  Record.     Privately  printed. 
Daniel  Tyler.     A  Memorial  Volume.     Privately  printed. 
A  New  Preface  to  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor.     August. 
A  New  Preface  to  Dream  Life.     September. 
Prefatory  Note  to  Wet  Days  at  Edgewood. 
Dedication  of  Doctor  Johns.    Thanksgiving  Day. 

1884 

Washington  Irving  Centennial  Address.  Given  at  Tarrytown-on-Hudson, 
New  York,  April  3d,  1883.  First  printed  in  the  Centennial  Volume,  New 
York,  1884. 

Bound  Together.     New  York.     Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

Out-of-Town  Places.  A  reissue  of  Rural  Studies.  New  York.  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons. 

406 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1885 

Lord  Macaulay.     An  introductory  sketch  for  an  edition  of  the  Lays  of  An 
cient  Rome.     Boston.     Rand,  Avery  &  Co. 

1888 
About  Some  Christmas  Pictures.     The  Book  Buyer,  5.445-449. 


English  Lands,  Letters,  and  Kings.    From  Celt  to  Tudor.    New  York.    Charles 

Scribner's  Sons. 

A  Scattering  Shot  at  Some  Ruralities.     Scribner's  (October),  6.507-512. 
Fifty   Years   Progress  in  Literature.     Address  at  Fiftieth  Anniversary  of 

Alpha  Delta  Phi,  May  i6th,  1882.     Printed  in  Alpha  Delta  Phi  (1889), 

1 1-20. 

1890 

English  Lands,  Letters,  and  Kings.     From  Elizabeth  to  Anne.     New  York. 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 
The  Country  House.     Scribner's   (September),   8.313-335.     Later  included 

in  the  volumg,  Homes  in  City  and  Country,  New  York.     Charles  Scribner's 

Sons.     1893. 

1891 

Paraphrase  of  Horace  iv.  7— To  Torquatus.     Verse.    Scribner's  (March), 
9-350. 

1892 

Looking  Back  at  Boyhood.     Youth's  Companion,  April  21.     Reprinted  in 
booklet  form  at  The  Academy  Press,  Norwich,  Conn.,  June  1906. 

1894 
The  Story  of  a  Coffee  Pot.     Outlook  (April  7th),  623-624. 

1895 

At  Yale  Sixty  Years  Ago.     An  article  prepared  for  the  literary  syndicate, 
Bacheller,  Johnson  &  Bacheller.     Published  in  many  newspapers. 

English  Lands,  Letters,  and  Kings.     Queen  Anne  and  the  Georges.     New  York. 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

1897 

American  Lands  and  Letters.    The  Mayflower  to  Rip  Van  Winkle.     New  York. 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 
English  Lands,  Letters,  and  Kings.     The  Later  Georges  to  Victoria.     New 

York.     Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 
The  Season's  Greeting.     The  Breeder's  Gazette,  December  15. 

407 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1898 

An  Introduction  to  the  Library  of  Household  Classics.  New  York.  Double- 
day  &  McClure  Co. 

An  Introduction  to  the  International  Library  of  Famous  Literature.  New 
York.  Merrill  &  Baker. 

1899 

American  Lands  and  Letters.  Leather  Stocking  to  Poe's  Raven.  New  York. 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

1902 

Woodbridge  Hall  Dedicatory  Address.  Given  October  23d,  1901.  Pub 
lished  in  the  Volume  Commemorating  the  Two  Hundredth  Anniversary  of 
the  Founding  of  Yale  University.  New  Haven.  1902. 

1907 

Prefatory.  The  Edgewood  Edition  of  The  Works  of  Donald  G.  Mitchell. 
New  York.  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


408 


PORTRAITS  OF  MR.  MITCHELL 

Portraits  of  Mr.  Mitchell  were  painted  as  follows: 

1.  By  Charles  Loring  Elliott,  1851.    Owned  by  Donald  G.  Mitchell, 

New  London,  Conn. 

2.  By  Charles  Noel  Flagg,  1861.    Owned  by  Mrs.  Rebecca  Mitchell 

Hart,  New  Haven,  Conn. 

3.  By  G.  Albert  Thompson,  1899.    Owned  by  Mrs.  Susan  Mitchell 

Hoppin.     It  hangs  in  the  Donald  G.  Mitchell  Memorial  Library, 
New  Haven. 

4.  By  Gari  Melchers,  1901.     Owned  by  Mrs.  Mary  Mitchell  Ryerson, 

Chicago. 

5.  By  Katherine  Abbot  Cox,  1904.      Owned  by  Mrs.  Susan  Mitchell 

Hoppin,  New  Haven,  Conn. 

6.  By  John  Ferguson  Weir,  1907.     Purchased  by  the  Class  of  1879, 

Yale  College,  and  presented  to  Yale  University.     It  hangs  in  the 
Dining  Hall. 

7.  By  Eleanor  Winslow,  1918.     Copy  of  the  Cox  portrait.     Owned  by 

the  Mitchell  sisters.    It  hangs  in  the  Edgewood  library. 


409 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Adam,  Alexander,  Latin  grammar,  40 

yEschylus,  Agamemnon  quoted,  361 

Alden,  Henry  Mills,  369 

Alston,  Susan,  240 

American   Review,    152,    166,    169,    170, 

177,  180,  181,  396,  397;  quoted,  101, 

117-118,  174 

Andy  (favorite  horse),  351-352 
Anthologies  Palatines,  83 
Atlantic  Almanac,  325,  403,  404 
Atlantic    Monthly,    291,    292-293,    300, 

301,  302,  401,  402 
Austen,  Philip  H.,  sends  verses  to  D.  G. 

M.,7 

Bancroft,  George,  243,  259,  369 
Barker,  B.  Fordyce,  211,  218,  369,  370- 

371,  375 
Barlow,  Joel,  72 
Barnes,  Mrs.,  D.  G.  M.  boards  with, 

181;  206 
Battery,  179 

Birge,  Gen.  Henry  W.,  287 
Blair,  Gen.  Frank,  40 
Bond,  Wm.  H.,  211 
Boston  Courier,  3 
Bowles,  Samuel,  21 1 
Breeder's  Gazette,  377,  407 
Brewster,  Wm.,  14 
Bridges,  Robert,  "Pater  Filio,"  29 
Brocklesby,  John,  Salathiel,  67 
Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  237 
Browning,  Robert  and  Elizabeth,  248 
Bryant,  Wm.  Cullen,  3 
Buckingham,  Gov.  W.  A.,  287 
Buckner,  Esther  R.,  339 
Bulwer,  1st  Lord  Lytton,  59;  My  Novel, 

251 

Bunyan,  John,  Pilgrim's  Progress,  32, 378 
Burke,  Edmund,  55,  59,  80,  148,  205,  320 
Bushnell,  Horace,  55 
Byron,  Lord,  141 


Campbell,  Wm.  W.,  165 

Canadian  Magazine,  237 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  207,  358,  380 

Cass,  Lewis,  201 

Cass,  Lewis  Jr.,  166 

Cato,  8 1 

Chambers,   Julius,  tells  of  Reveries  in 

Spain,  8 
Chapin,  Dr.,  66 
Chester,  A.  T.,  quoted,  20 
Chronicles  of  a  Connecticut  Farm,  21,351 
Clarke,    Christopher,    presents    cup    to 

D.  G.  M.  on  behalf  of  New  England 

Park  Superintendents,  381 
Clay,  Henry,  201 
Cleveland,  Mrs.  Grover,  dedicatee  third 

volume  English  Lands,  309 
Colburn's  Arithmetic,  40 
Colton,  George  H.,  169,  174,  177,  181; 

reads  Poe's  "Raven"  to  D.  G.  M., 

1 80 

Commercial  Advertiser,  126,  173,  396 
Cooper,  James  Fenimore,  3,  59 
Courier  and  Enquirer,  166,  169,  177,  179, 

183,  187,  188,  189,  191-193,  194,  202, 

209,  211,  217,  218,  396,  397,  398,  399 
Cox,  Katherine  Abbot,  409 
Cultivator,  D.  G.  M.'s  contributions  to, 

95-96, 105,  120,  122,  137-138,  396, 397 
Curtis,  George  Wm.,  7,  226,  369;  letter 

of  condolence  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  D.  G. 

M.,  289 

Curwen,  John,  375 
Cushing,  Caleb,  258 

Daggett,  David,  49,  50,  66 

Dana,  Richard  H.,  55 

Day,  Gad,  45 

Day,  Jeremiah,  46  note,  47,  66,  72 

Democratic  Review,  170,  257 

Dickens,  Charles,  Sketches  by  Boz,  83; 


INDEX 


American  Notes  and  Martin  Chuzzle- 

wit,  164;  369,  404 
Dixon,  James,  167 
Dixon,  Mrs.  James,  167,  180 
Dodge,  Mary  Mapes,  369 
Doremus,  Mrs.  Estelle  E.,  reports  death 

of  W.  H.  Huntington,  374-375 
Downing,  A.  J.,  83,  254 
Dudley,  Gov.  Thomas,  19 
Diirr,    Alphons,    "Standard    American 

Authors,"  232 
Dwight,  Timothy  1st,  17,  71-72 

Edgewood,  5,  6,  22,  30,  277,  278,  281, 
282,  283,  284,  285,  286,  288,  293,  297, 
298,  299,  300,  303,  306,  309,  311,  320, 
321,  323-325,  332,  333,  334-365  pas 
sim,  366,  371,  376,  377,  378,  379,  387, 

389,  390,  391 

Edgewood  Civic  Association,  makes  D. 
G.  M.  first  honorary  member,  389 

Edgeworth,  Maria,  37-38 

"Editor's  Easy  Chair,"  origin  of,  226; 
D.  G.  M.'s  contributions  to,  399-400 

Edward  III  of  England,  15 

Edwards,  Gov.  H.  W.,  66 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  72 

Ellington  School,  28-31,  34,  35,  39-41, 
86 

Elliott,  Charles  Loring,  his  portrait  of 
D.  G.  M.,  240,  409 

Elliott,  Charles  Wyllys,  Book  of  Ameri 
can  Interiors,  348 

Ellsworth,  Gov.  W.  W.,  66 

Elze,  Karl,  232 

Emerson,  Joseph,  57,  310,  375 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  quoted,  9; 
Representative  Men,  3;  "American 
Scholar"  and  "Divinity  College  Ad 
dress,"  54 

Ericsson,  John,  179 

Euripides,  D.  G.  M.'s  translation  of,  53- 

54 

Evenus,  quoted,  83,  154;  D.  G.  M.'s 
translation  of,  83  note 

Flagg,  Charles  Noel,  409 
Folsom,  Frances  (Mrs.  Grover   Cleve 
land),  309 
Forbes,  Robert  W.,  129 


Gilman,  Daniel  C.,  214,  369 

Goddard,  Levi  H.,  75 

Goddard,  Mary  Perkins,  32,  33,  52,  73, 
75,  86,  87,  227,  228,  230,  231,  259, 
369;  for  D.  G.  M.'s  letters  to,  see 
under  "Mitchell,  Donald  G.,  (7) 
Letters" 

Goodrich,  Chauncey  A.,  49 

Graham's  Magazine,  181,  398 

Grant,  Mrs.  Arminal  Toucey,  16 

Grant,  Donald  (great-grandfather  D.  G. 
M.),  16 

Grant,  Hannah,  16 

Grant,  Wm.H.,  311 

Guyot,  Arnold,  205 

Hall,  John,  of  Ellington  School,  28,  29, 

30,39 

Hamlen,  B.  L.,  46,  58,  395 

Harkness  Memorial  Quadrangle  at  Yale, 
entry  named  for  D.  G.  M.,  3 19 

Harland,  Gen.,  288 

Harper  Brothers,  175,  176,  255 

Harper,  Fletcher,  226 

Harper's  Magazine,  225,  226,  239,  268, 
300,  399,  400,  401 

Hart  Children,  344 

Hart,  Philip,  345 

Hart,  Rebecca  Mitchell  (daughter  D.  G. 
M.),  339,  355,  4°9 

Hart,  Walter  T.,  339 

Hauff,  Wilhelm,  59 

Hawthorne,  Julian,  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 
and  his  Wife,  291  note 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  7,  256,  257,  258, 
291,  369;  Scarlet  Letter,  3;  letter  to 
D.  G.  M.,  298-299 

Hayne,  Alston,  171 

Hayne,  Arthur,  171 

Hayne,  Paul  Hamilton,  369 

Headley,  Joel  T.,  215,  254 

Hearth  and  Home,  3 1,  3 1 1,  325;  founding 
of,  305;  D.  G.  M.  edits,  305-308;  in 
itial  editorial,  306-307;  ownership 
changes,  308;  failure  of,  331;  quoted, 
242;  D.  G.  M.'s  contributions  to, 
403-404 

Hearts  of  Girlhood  (D.  G.  M.  considers 
writing),  229 

Hillhouse,  James,  43 


414 


INDEX 


Historical  Society  (New  London,  Conn.), 

31,345 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  3,  54,  179,  403 
Home  Journal  (New  York),  212 
Hoppin,  James  Mason,  339 
Hoppin,  Susan  Mitchell  (daughter  D. 

G.M.),  283,339,340,363,409 
Horace,  "To  Torquatus,"  D.  G.  M.'s 

translation,  407 
Horticulturist,  301,  402,  403 
Hours  at  Home,  301,  402,  403,  404 
Howells,  Wm.  Dean,  3,  226 
Humphreys,  David,  72 
Huntington,  Wm.  Henry,  38-39,  209, 

231,  232;  265,  369,  371-372,  374-375; 

his  letters  to  D.  G.  M.,  217-218,  219- 

220,  296-297,  301,  373-374;  for  D.  G. 

M.'s  letters  to,  see  "Mitchell,  Donald 

G.,  (7)  Letters" 

Ingersoll,  Colin,  274,  275 

Irving,  Washington,  3,  7,  87,  237,  274, 
369,  371;  acknowledges  dedication 
Dream  Life,  228;  with  D.  G.  M.  at 
Saratoga  Springs,  239-241;  entertains 
D.  G.  M.  at  Sunnyside,  254;  D.  G.  M. 
writes  of  in  Atlantic  Monthly,  292-293 

James,  Rev.  Henry,  181,  369 

James,  Henry  Jr.,  181 

Johns,  Dr.  Benjamin,  referred  to,  20,  22 

Johnson,  Samuel,  310 

Johnson,  W.  S.,  17 

Jones,  George  Wymberley,  399 

Judd,  David  M.,  308 

Junius,  Letters  of,  79-80 

Kain,  Dr.  J.  H.,  46 

Keats,  John,  24 

Kent's  Commentaries,  48,  49 

Kernot,  Henry,  210,  211,  219;  diary  let 
ter  of  in  regard  to  Lorgnette,  212-215 

Kimball,  Arthur  Reed,  quoted,  313,  321 

Kimberly,  Gen.,  66 

Kingsley,  James  L.,  49 

Knickerbocker  Magazine,  83,  239,  248, 
268,  396,  400 

Lamb,  Charles,  237 
Lancaster,  Joseph,  39 
Larned,  Rev.  Wm.  A.,  72 


Law,  Stephen  D.,  375 

Lawler,  James,  his  poem,  "Ik  Marvel," 
236-237 

Learned,  Wm.  Law,  227  note 

Les  Miser  able  s,  350 

Lewis,  Charles,  170 

L1  Illustration  (Paris),  232 

Literary  World  (New  York),  214,  221 

Longfellow,  Henry  W.,  243,  369;  Hia 
watha,  3 ;  Voices  of  the  Night,  53-54 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  Biglow  Papers,  3 

Macaulay,  Lord,  141,  407 

Mallet,  David,  quoted,  290 

Manning,  Gov.  Richard  L,  254 

Marcy,  W.  L.,  259,  264 

Marsh,  George  P.,  167,  369;  letter  to 
D.  G.  M.,  206 

Marsh,  Mrs.  George  P.,  167,  168,  170 

Marvel,  Ik,  adoption  of  pen-name,  166; 
probable  origin  of  name,  167 

Marvell,  Andrew,  167 

Matthews,  Cornelius,  215 

Melchers,  Gari,  359,  409 

Meyer,  Carl,  232 

Milton,  John,  7,  3 16 

Miscellany  (Bentley's),  202 

Mitchell,  Alfred  (brother  D.  G.  M.),  31, 
51,  52,  87,  178,  287,  332 

Mitchell,  Rev.  Alfred  (father  D.  G.  M.), 
18-23,  28,  31,36-37,50 

Mitchell,  Donald  G.— [(i)  Chronolog 
ical;  (2)  Characteristics;  (3)  Person 
alia;  (4)  Religion;  (5)  Political  Views; 
(6)  Diaries  and  Note-books;  (7)  Let 
ters;  (8)  His  Books]— 

(i)  CHRONOLOGICAL,  EVENTS,  MOVE 
MENTS,  ETC. 

Ancestry,  parentage,  13-24;  relations, 
the  family  circle,  25-28,  31,  32-33, 

36-37,  39,  41,  42,  50-53 

1822:  birth,  23 

1825-1837:  early  impressions  of  home 
surroundings,  23-26,  36-39;  at  El 
lington  school,  28-35,  39"4J ;  family 
life,  23-28,  30-33,  36-41;  death  of 
father,  31;  early  reading,  32-33,  37, 
38 

1837-1841:  enters  Yale,  42-45;  details 


415 


INDEX 


of  college  life,  45-73 ;  course  of  study 
and  instructors,  48-50,  53-54,  71- 
72;  connection  with  Yale  Literary 
Magazine,  56-64;  scholarship  re 
cord,  53;  interest  in  literature,  53- 
64;  membership  in  societies,  55-56; 
senior  vacation,  64-65;  description 
of  Commencement,  65-67;  valedic 
tory  oration,  67-71;  graduation,  65, 
72;  influence  of  Yale,  71-72;  later 
opinion  of  Yale,  71-72 

1841-1844:  retirement  to  Elmgrove, 
Salem,  74-75;  life  in  the  country, 
76-84;  extracts  from  diary,  77-82; 
contributions  to  magazines,  82-83; 
study  of  agriculture,  76,  83-84; 
prize  plans  for  farm  buildings,  84; 
sudden  termination  of  country  life, 
84-85 

1844:  sails  for  Liverpool,  86-87;  con~ 
sular  clerk  in  Liverpool,  88-99 

1845:  leaves  Liverpool,  99;  travel  in 
England,  100-102;  goes  to  Jersey, 
102-106;  Jersey  through  England  to 
Liverpool,  107-111;  travel  in  Brit 
ish  Isles,  112-122;  in  France  and 
Switzerland,  122-137 

1846:  travel  in  Italy,  138-145;  in  Ger 
many,  etc.,  145-148;  sails  from 
Havre  for  America,  151;  details  of 
voyage,  152-155;  at  Elmgrove,  163; 
in  Washington,  D.  C,  163-166 

1847:  in  Washington,  D.  C.,  167-171; 
southern  travel,  171-172;  publica 
tion  Fresh  Gleanings,  174-177; 
northern  travel,  178;  law  study, 
178-180 

1848:  the  law,  181-182;  friends  in  New 
York  City,  180-181;  gives  lecture, 
182;  off  to  Paris  and  reports  Revolu 
tion  of  1848,  183-205;  state  of  mind 
while  abroad,  189-190,  194-205 

1849:  last  months  in  Paris,  200-205; 
return  to  America,  205-206;  studies 
law  and  writes  Battle  Summer,  206- 
209 

1850:  edits  Lorgnette,  209-224;  publi 
cation  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor,  224- 
226;  sells  Salem  farm,  237 

1851:  begins  "Editor's  Easy  Chair" 


for  Harper's  Magazine,  226;  writing 
and  publication  Dream  Life,  227- 
228;  success  of  Reveries  and  Dream 
Life,  229-232 

1852:  goes  to  Saratoga  Springs  to  see 
Washington  Irving  and  meets  Mary 
Pringle,  239-242 

1853  :  his  engagement  to  Miss  Pringle, 
245;  his  letters  to  her,  249-259;  ap 
pointed  consul  to  Venice,  256,  259; 
marriage,  259;  off  to  Liverpool,  259; 
European  travel,  260-261;  in  Ven 
ice,  262-264 

1854:  resigns  consulate,  264;  residence 
in  Paris,  265-268;  birth  of  first 
child,  266;  friends  in  Paris,  265 

1855:  literary  work  (1853-1855),  268; 
return  to  America,  268-269;  finding 
and  purchase  of  Edgewood,  273-278 

1856-1908:  life  at  Edgewood,  279-391, 
passim 

1861-1865:  anxieties  of  Civil  War 
period,  286-297 

1865:  appointed  member  Advisory 
Council,  Yale  Art  School 

1868-1870:  edits  Hearth  and  Home, 
305-308 

1876:  designs  Connecticut  Building 
for  Centennial  Exposition,  312 

1878:  appointed  additional  commis 
sioner  to  Paris  Universal  Exposi 
tion,  312;  Yale  conferred  LL.D.  de 
gree,  357 

1882:  report  on  East  Rock  Park,  New 
Haven 

1884:  lectures  on  literature,  Yale  Col- 
lege 

1901:  address  at  dedication  Wood- 
bridge  Hall,  Yale,  379-381 

1906-1907:  preparation  Edgewood 
edition  of  Works,  386-387 

1908:  death,  390-391 

(2)  CHARACTERISTICS 

Courage  and  persistency,  3,  323-333; 
closeness  of  observation,  100,  105; 
habit  of  reverie,  382-385;  humor, 
79,  93,  100,  148,  208-224,  249- 
25°j  358-360,  386;  individuality 
marked,  4-5;  love  of  beauty,  7,  9, 


416 


INDEX 


298,  313,  3*5-322;  love  of  home, 
334-365;  love  of  nature,  36,  52-53, 
76,  81-83,  95-96,  103-104,  137-138, 

153,     l6o,     189-190,    201-202,    266, 

279-285;  modesty,  232,  356-358; 
Puritan  and  Cavalier  qualities,  7; 
purity,  361-362;  retiring  nature,  I, 
55,  84,  85,  162-163,  164,  178,  179- 
180,  366-368;  sensitiveness,  I,  24, 
28,  29,  34,  50,  64,  153-154,  198-200, 
204-205,  207,  252,  256;  serenity, 
363-365,  376-378;  sharpness  of 
memory,  24,  381-382;  sincerity,  2, 
233-234,  258,  369;  strength  of 
friendship,  366-375;  tranquilizing 
quality,  8-9 

(3)  PERSONALIA 

Varied  interests,  2,  311-313,  350-351; 
avoiding  callers,  346-347;  "call 
ing,"  368;  pride  in  ancestry,  14-15; 
"passion  of  the  past,"  24,  34,  204- 
205,  381-382;  drawing,  33,  260; 
dealings  with  children,  5,  340-344; 
country  drives,  52,  76,  85,  378,  389; 
furnishing  room  at  college,  53; 
flowers,  5,  20,  36,  96,  101  note,  104, 
127,  137,  250,  251,  253,  273,  276, 
278,  279,  285,  320,  332,  334,  336, 
348,  353-356,  364,  366,  377,  390; 
health,  2,  50,  53,  67,  73,  85,  96,  97, 
99,  103,  105,  121,  155,  159,  161,  163, 
170,  178,  181,  194,  196,  325-326, 
328,  331;  dress,  240;  eyes,  100,  240; 
personal  appearance,  240,  350;  rus 
tic  woodwork,  350;  map-making, 
350-351;  pets,  351-352;  wood- 
chopping,  373-374,  378;  portraits 
of,  240,  359-360,  409 

(4)  RELIGION 

Strongly  individual,  5;  Puritan  ele 
ment,  7,  25,  361;  Woolsey's  influ 
ence  at  Yale,  72;  unpleasant  mem 
ories  of  early  religious  training,  24- 
25,  26-28,  37;  comments,  120,  143- 
144,  250,  255,  302-303;  dislike  of 
affectation  in  pulpit,  258;  increas 
ing  simplicity  of,  382-383;  religious 
musings,  383-385,  389;  verses  on 


Psalm  127:  2  which  came  to  him  in 
sleep,  385 

(5)  POLITICAL  VIEWS 

Deliberate  retirement  from  politics, 
5-6,  294;  references  to  civil  govern 
ment,  68-69,  80,  126,  144-148,  183, 
184-185,  200;  refuses  nomination 
for  governorship  of  Connecticut, 
6-7;  references  to  party  politics,  94, 
95,  128,  136, 168,  170,  201-202,  259; 
observations  in  Washington,  D.  C., 
163,  257-259;  comment  on  France 
(1848),  191-193;  opinions  on  Civil 
War,  289-296 

(6)  DIARIES  AND  NOTE-BOOKS 

Mentioned,  76,  83,  123,  128,  132,  173; 
quoted,  6,  77-82,  84,  108-111,  112- 
114,  119,  120,  123,  132,  138-140, 
143-144,  145,  146-149,  150-152, 
153,  154,  155,  161-162,  174,  301, 
304,  309-310,  323,  367;  random 
notes  quoted,  23-24,  25-28,  29,  71- 
72,  72,  171-172,  229,  279,  291,  309, 
358,  361-362,  364,  366,  367,  368, 
381-382,  383-385,  386 

(7)  LETTERS 

To  Mary  Goddard,  89-91,  93-94,  99, 
103-105,  106,  107-108,  112,  123- 
128,  129-132,  133-137,  Hi-143, 
160,  163,  164-165,  167-171,  176- 
177,  178,  179-180,  181-182,  187, 
188-189,  190,  193,  194-196,  197- 

200,     201-205,     242-243,    245-246, 

247,   261-264,   265-266,    267-268, 

275 

To  sons  of  John  Hall:  30 
To  Harper  and  Brothers:  175-176 
To  Philip  Hart  (grandson):  345 
To  Nathaniel  Hawthorne:  291  note 
To  Susan  Mitchell  Hoppin  (daugh 
ter)  :3  40,  363 

To  Wm.  Henry  Huntington:  216-217, 
218-219,  292,  293-296,  301-302, 
303-304,  305,  312,  326-327,  329- 
330,  33i,  362,  374 

To  Donald  G.  Mitchell  (son):  333,  345 
To  Elizabeth  Mitchell  (daughter):  101 


417 


INDEX 


note,  233  note,  332,  343,  345~346, 
355,  358,  379 

To  Harriet  Mitchell  (daughter):  334, 
365 

To  Mary  Pringle  Mitchell  (wife) :  244- 
245,  247-248,  249-259,  274,  327- 
329,  338,  356-357,  362 

To  Walter  Mitchell  (uncle):  I2O-I22, 
159,  162-163,  172-173 

To  James  B.  Olcott:  282 

To  Julia  C.  G.  Piatt:  308-309,  370 

To  Wm.  B.  Pringle:  260,  266-267 

To  Mary  Mitchell  Ryerson  (daugh 
ter):  15 

To  Charles  Scribner  (son  of  founder) : 
332-333,  379,  386,  387 

To  Gen.  Wm.  Williams  (guardian): 
59-64,  88-89,  91-93,  94-95,  96-99, 
102-103,  106,  IH-II2,  114-117, 
128,  129,  137,  138,  I44-H5,  H6, 

149-150,  159,  l6l,  l62,  l82,  2OO-20I 

(8)  His  BOOKS  [CONSULT  THE  BIBLIOG 
RAPHY,  PP.  395-408,  FOR  ADDITIONAL 
INFORMATION] 

Fresh  Gleanings :  writing  and  publica 
tion  of,  174-177;  mentioned,  102, 
386,  397;  quoted,  74,  86,  103,  152 

Battle  Summer:  writing  and  publica 
tion  of,  206-207;  criticism  of,  207; 
mentioned,  209,  215,  399 

Lorgnette:  publication  of,  209-224;  in 
Kernot's  diary,  212-214;  men 
tioned,  399;  quoted,  13,  183-184, 
208,  215,  215-216,  220-224,  224, 
225,  389 

Reveries  of  a  Bachelor:  writing  and 
publication  of,  224-226;  mentioned, 
3,4,7,8,23,28,29,34,75,153,218, 
227,  228,  229,  230,  231,  232,  233, 

234,  237,  239,  243,  249,  250,  399, 
401,  406;  quoted,  29,  53,  21 1,  225, 
232-233,   235-236,   239,   286,  337, 
338-339,  363,  376 

Dream  Life:  writing  and  publication 
of,  226-229;  mentioned,  4,  23,  25, 
34,  47,  74,  75,  178,  232,  233,  234, 

235,  237,  239,  244,  339,  399,  401, 


406;  quoted,  13,  42,  159,  208,  228, 

229,  233,  234,  236,  390 
Fudge  Doings:  239,  248,  255,  268,  371, 

400-401;  quoted,  14-15 
My  Farm  of  Edgewood:  282,  300,  335, 

401;  quoted,  86,  273,  275-278,  279, 

279-280,    281,    283-284,    284-285, 

340-341,  349,  353-355 
Seven  Stories:  107,  112,  206,  300,  371, 

401;  quoted,  265 
Wet  Days  at  Edgewood :  2,  80,  1 1 1,  300, 

402;  quoted,  299-300 
Dr.  Johns:  writing  and  publication  of, 

301-304;  proscribed  (1866)  preface 

of,  302-303;  its  sale,  303-304;  its 

historical   value,    304;    mentioned, 

23,  25,  374,  402 
Out-of-Town  Places  (Rural  Studies): 

76,  284,  300-301,  403,  406;  quoted, 

74,  85,  280,  280-281,  283,  284,  290, 

319-320,  321-322 
Pictures  of  Edgewood:  284,  403 
About  Old  Story  Tellers:  23,  32,  330, 

405 

Daniel  Tyler :  406 

Woodbridge  Record:  15,  406 

Bound  Together,  23,  31,  264,  313,  406; 
quoted,  I,  34,  336 

English  Lands,  Letters,  and  Kings: 
writing  of,  308-309;  purpose  of, 
309-311;  value  of,  310-311;  men 
tioned,  55,  370,  378,  407;  quoted, 
118-119 

American  Lands  and  Letters:  writing 

of,  308;  mentioned,  32,  298,  311, 

378,  408;  quoted,  54,  55,  71,  180, 

256,  346 

Mitchell,  Donald  G.  (son  D.  G.  M.), 

333,  339,  344-345,  4°9 

Mitchell,  Donald  G.  (uncle  D.  G.  M.), 
18 

Mitchell,  Elizabeth  (daughter  D.  G. 
M.),  55,  101  note,  233  note,  332,  339, 
345-346,  355,  356,  357,  358,  379 

Mitchell,  Elizabeth  (sister  D.  G.  M.), 

Si,  73,  86 
Mitchell,  Harriet  (daughter  D.  G.  M.), 

334,  339,  379 

Mitchell,  Hesse  Alston  1st  (daughter 
D.  G.  M.),  287,  288-289,  293,  339,  363 


418 


INDEX 


Mitchell,  Hesse  Alston  2d  (daughter  D. 

G.  M.),  339,  355,  379 
Mitchell,  James  (great-grandfather  D. 

G.  M.),  15-16 
Mitchell,  James  Alfred  (son  D.  G.  M.), 

339,  342,  343,  363,  364,  391 
Mitchell,  Louis  (brother  D.  G.  M.),  50, 

51,  52,  87,  265,  287-288,  366;  letters 

to  Mary  Goddard,  230-232 
Mitchell,  Lucretia  (sister  D.  G.  M.),  51, 

86 
Mitchell,  Pringle  (son  D.  G.  M.),  339, 

363,  393 
Mitchell,  Stephen  (brother  D.  G.  M.), 

42,51 
Mitchell,  Stephen  Mix  (grandfather  D. 

G.  M.),  16-18 
Mitchell,  Walter  L.  (son  D.  G.  M.),  339, 

343 
Mitchell,  Walter  (uncle  D.  G.  M.),  120- 

122,  162-163,  172-173 

Mix,  Rebecca  (great-grandmother  D.  G. 

M.),  16 

Mix,  Rev.  Stephen,  16 
Moniteur  (Paris),  232 
More,  Paul  Elmer,  54 
Morse,  S.  F.  B.,  paints  portrait  Judge 

Mitchell,  17 
Mowrer,  Kathrin,  339 
Mumford,  Elizabeth,  14,  75 
Mumford,  John  and  Lucretia,  21-22 

Nation  (New  York),  311 

National  Intelligencer,  168,  170 

New  Englander,  83,  300,  318,  396,  401 

New  England  Review  (weekly),  32 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  59 

North  American  Review,  82-83,  396 

Olcott,  James  B.,  282 
Olmstead,  Denison,  46  note,  47,  49 
Osborn,  Laughton,  213-214 
O'Sullivan,  John,  editor  Democratic  Re 
view,  170 
Overbury,  Sir  Thomas,  quoted,  14-15 

Paley's  Natural  Theology,  48,  49 
Parker,  Rev.  Robert,  13 
Parker,  Sara,  13 
Pattison,  Mark,  32 


Paulding,  J.  K.,  215 

Percival,  James  G.,  72 

Perkins,  Elias,  31 

Perkins,  Henry,  31,  32,  94,  128 

Perkins,  Jacob,  46 

Perkins,  Mary,  see  Goddard 

Perkins,  Mary  E.,  Chronicles  of  a,  Con 
necticut  Farm,  21,  351 

Perkins,  Nathaniel  Shaw,  31 

Petrarch,  141 

Piatt,  Mrs.  J.  C.  G.  (daughter  Mary 
Perkins  Goddard),  308-309,  367,  370 

Pierce,  Franklin,  256 

Polk,  James  K.,  92,  94,  95,  136,  165, 
167 

Porter,  President  Noah,  66,  72 

Porter,  Rev.  Noah,  66 

Press  (of  Christchurch,  New  Zealand), 
containing  Sir  Robert  Stout's  article 
on  Reveries  and  Dream  Life,  235  note 

Pringle,  Mary  Frances  (wife  D.  G.  M.), 
meets  D.  G.  M.  at  Saratoga  Springs, 
240-241;  courtship,  242-259;  engage 
ment,  245;  marriage,  259;  mentioned, 
261,  263,  266,  267,  273,  282,  297,  337- 
339,  356,  360,  376,  391;  death  of,  364- 
365;  letter  to  D.  G.  M.,  339;  D.  G. 
M.'s  letters  to,  244-245,  247-248,  240- 

259 

Pringle,  Rebecca,  286 
Pringle,  Robert,  265 
Pringle,  Susan,  240,  265,  286 
Pringle,  Wm.  B.,  240,  260,  266-267 
Pringle,  Mrs.  Wm.  B.,  288 
Pringle,  Mr.   and  Mrs.   Wm.   B.,   286, 

287,  289,  297 
Pseudonyms  of  D.  G.  M.:  "Caius,"  166; 

"Don,"  173,  396;  "Ik  Marvel,"  166- 

J67;     "John    Timon,"    210;     "Jno. 

Crowquill,"  382,406;  "Abijah  Wilker- 

son,"  403-404;  "Mr.  Quigley,"  401; 

"Mr.  Sharply,"  401 
Pusey,  Cecile,  205 
Putnam's  Magazine,  207 

Raymond,  Henry  J.,  177,  211 
Reade,  Charles,  Griffith  Gaunt,  303 
Reese,  Mary  Dews,  339 
Rembrandt,  14 
Republic,  179 


419 


INDEX 


Richmond,  Legh,  Dairyman's  Daughter, 

120 

Rockwell,  John  A.,  165 
Rogers,  Samuel,  38 
Ruskin,  John,  Time  and  Tide,  350 
Ryerson,  Edward  L.,  339,  351,  359 
Ryerson,  Mary  Mitchell  (daughter  D. 

G.  M.),  IS,  334,  339,  35i>  379,  409 
Ryerson  children,  344,  346 

St.  Gaudens,  Augustus,  D.  G.  M.'s  com 
ment  on  his  Diana,  361-362 

Salmagundi,  209 

Saltonstall,  Sir  Richard,  14,  15 

Sargent,  John  O.,  179,  206 

Savage, ,  29 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  59,  94,  115,  33  2 

Scribner,  Charles  (founder  publishing 
house),  177,  210,  220,  225,  255 

Scribner,  Charles  (son  of  founder),  333, 

379,  387 

Scribner9  s  Magazine,  313,  407 
Scribner's  Sons,  Charles,  386-387 
Seaman,  Henry  J.,  165 
Shakespeare,  107,  205,  218,  235,  306,  348 
Silliman,  Benjamin,  45,  48 
Silliman,  Benjamin,  Jr.,  169 
Sisson,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Allan,  227 
Smith,  Joseph  Few,  184 
Smith,  Senator,  66 
Sophocles,  Electra  quoted,  361 
Southern  Literary  Messenger,  114,  224, 

398,  399 

Spectator  (Addison's),  209 
Sprague,  Rev.  W.  B.,  Annals  American 

Pulpit  quoted,  21 
Springfield  Republican,  21 1 
Stanley,  Anthony  D.,  49 
Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  100 
Stiles,  Ezra,  71 

Stoeckle  (Stakkel),  Baron,  166 
Stout,  Sir  Robert,  on  Reveries  and  Dream 

Life,  235 

Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher,  369 
Sun  (Baltimore),  311 
Swinburne,  A.  C.,  Atalanta  in  Calydon 

quoted,  373 


Taft,  Alphonso,  40 
Taft,  Wm.  Howard,  40 


Taylor,  Bayard,  369;  Views  A-foot,  87 
Taylor,  Henry  Charles,  2 
Taylor,  Zachary,  179,  201 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  24,  357 
Testa,  Chevalier,  166,  167,  170 
Thompson,  G.  Albert,  portrait  of  D.  G. 

M.,  359-36o,  409 
Thursby,  Emma,  357 
Tilden,  Samuel  J.,  181,  21 1 
Tribune  (New  York),  207,  218,  382,  405- 

406 

Trumbull,  Jonathan,  72 
Tyler,  Gen.  Daniel,  295 
Tyler,  John,  91,  98 

Ulrich,  Miss,  boarding-house  of,  165 
Union,  167,  170 

Van  Buren,  Martin,  201 

Vesuvius,  D.  G.  M.'s  ascent  of,  139-140 

Virgil,  79,  84 

Vitruvius,  81 

Waldo,  Samuel,  22 

Walton,  Izaak,  167,  205,  237 

Ware,  James,  De  Scriptoribus  Hibernia, 

13 

Ware,  Sir  James,  13 

Warren,  Dr.  Samuel,  58-59 

Washington,  George,  18,  98 

Waterman,  J.  W.,  quoted,  56 

Way,  Arthur  S.,  translation  of  Virgil's 

Georgic  quoted,  84 
Wayland's  Political  Economy,  48 
Webb,  Col.,  editor  Courier  and  Enquirer, 

169 

Webster,  Daniel,  3,  148,  169 
Webster,  Mrs.  Daniel,  169 
Webster's  Primary  Speller,  317,372 
Weir,  John  F.,  409 
Westminster  Catechism,  27,  37 
White,  Joel  W.,  consul  to  Liverpool,  84, 

85,  88,  89,  90,  91,  92,  93,  94,  95,  97, 

98,  107,  112 

White,  Richard  Grant,  215 

Whittier,  John  G.,  32;  letter  to  D.  G. 

M.,  305-306 
"Wilkerson,  Abijah,"  Journal  of,  403- 

404 
Williams,  Gen.  Wm.  (guardian  D.  G. 


420 


INDEX 


M.),  52,  59-64,  84-85,  87,  88-89,  91- 
93,  94-95>  9^99,  102-103,  106,  in- 
112,  114,  115-117,  128,  129,  137,  138, 
144-145,  146,  149-150,  i59-i6o,  161, 
162,  182,  186,  200 

Willis,  Nathaniel  P.,  71,  169,  212,  215, 
369 

Wilson,  John  (Christopher  North),  55 

Winslow,  Eleanor,  409 

Winter,  Wm.,  7,  369;  characterizes  D. 
G.  M.,  8-9 

Woodbridge,  Rev.  Ephraim,  19 

Woodbridge,  Rev.  John,  13 

Woodbridge,  Lucretia  (mother  D.  G. 
M.),  19,  21-24,  26,  37,  51 

Woodbridge,  Nathaniel  Shaw,  13,  75 

Woodbridge,  Sara  Parker,  13 

Woodbridge  Hall,  Yale  University,  D. 
G.  M.'s  dedicatory  address,  379-381 


Woodbridge's  Geography -,  38 
Woods,  Leonard,  169 
Woolsey,  Theodore  D.,  49,  53,  72 
Wordsworth,  Wm.,  55,  117,  118-119 
Wright,  Wm.,  166 

Yale  (College,  University),  7,  16,  17,  18, 
28,  41,  42-73,  123,  177,  227,  274,  275, 
309,  313,  316,  319,  357,  376,  379-381, 
408 

Yale  Literary  Magazim,  56-64;  D.  G. 
M.'s  contributions  to,  395 

Yarnall,  Thomas  C,  57,  375 

Youth's  Companion,  D.  G.  M.'s  "Look 
ing  Back  at  Boyhood,"  35-41 

Zola,  Emile,  La  Joie  de  Vivre,  374 


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